Otaku Two: Bubblegum Boy
by Skysaber
Summary: A lost arc of the Skysaber series SI, now at last begins to be available for public view as the superspy must engage in a planet wide conflict to save the world from Genom. Based on BGC 2030
1. Chapter One

Bubblegum Boy   
Chapter One 

by Jared Ornstead   
aka Skysaber   


Author's Forward:   
I'm going to have to break up the number scheme I'd thought I'd   
work on as there's way too much to fit in before the already   
established storylines. This does not cover the Tenchi arc, which has   
to be done, or some of the other critical nonsense that I'd very much   
like to write. But it does begin to plug a hole I'd left in the   
superspy's history, falling between Otaku Reflected and Eva Revolution.   
Nor will this be the only arc that falls between Otaku Reflected   
and Eva Revolution, as I've got a Tenchi arc that absolutely must be   
covered, and a Dirty Pair segment I want to fit in. And, in the   
process, I'm close to certain that more will be required. So rather   
than give number to the arcs, which I'm sure will change, they will be   
named instead.   


There was a faint blurring of everything, and when it cleared Jared   
found himself standing in a short corridor leading into a small room.   
Before he really had time to gain any bearings a man-shaped armored   
robot had noticed him and shoved him into the room.   
It's voice box resonated. "You're supposed to wait in there."   
Stumbling back into the room, Jared caught himself and did his best   
to assess the situation.   
One: He was garbed and equipped as usual. That was a good thing,   
many of his toys should still be functional, if not all of them.   
Two: He was not alone. Five women were waiting in the small room   
with him, for what he did not know.   
Three: There was another guy in here that looked identical to   
himself, even down to the hairstyle and clothes.   
Four: Clothes were something of an issue. The girls did not have   
any. Their sitting there in just tank tops and panties made him   
profoundly uncomfortable. They apparently noticed this and one of them   
even smiled. Turning to her companions she said.   
"Well, I guess we're not so bad. After all, it isn't everyone that   
can get a rise out of an unprogrammed 42-S." She shook her blonde hair.   
Jared drew himself, still rapidly collating data. "Hello, my name's   
Skysaber."   
The other four girls looked at him, a redheaded one in concern.   
"Hey, has someone triggered your programming early? You shouldn't be   
trying to bond with another Sexaroid."   
His lack of information was clearly critical. Folding his arms he   
leaned back against a wall. "Would somebody please tell me what is   
going on?"   
Now the girls were actually worried, the guy who looked like him   
hadn't moved even to twitch a cheek muscle. His double acted like a   
store mannequin The blonde one of the five girls stood up, coming over   
to him acting almost like a performance coach. "Okay, listen carefully.   
You are a model 42-S sexaroid, like that one." She motioned to the   
immobile copy of him. "You're both more advanced than the rest of us.   
We're all just thirty-threes. But they needed the higher end for you   
two to get the personality algorithms right. Look, you shouldn't be   
active yet. We haven't even arrived on station, your owner isn't here   
for you to bond with."   
He nodded. Helpful to know what they thought he was. "And your   
names?"   
She looked a little stunned, but didn't make an issue of it. The   
lady shrugged. "Not that it matters but my name is Lou. The one sitting   
there who spoke after me is called Meg. Those are Sylvie, Nam and Anri.   
The one in the corner is another Skysaber."   
Meg tossed a lock of red hair out of her eyes. "Unless they change   
our names when they sell us. They do that sometimes."   
Lou was about to move away but Jared caught her wrist, turning it   
over to look at her hand, feeling her pulse. "We're androids, do you   
say? Then how come you've got a pulse?"   
The girls really were beginning to feel puzzled. Lou just let him   
hold her hand. "For realism, of course."   
He looked into her eyes, then tilted his head to look at her face.   
Finally he shrugged. "You look real enough to me. More importantly, you   
act like real people. Would it offend any of you if I were to just   
presume you were real enough to make friends with?"   
They all laughed. "Sure. " The one named Sylvie said. "We're all   
new from the factory, it might be good to try out our programming   
before a human expects us to be good at it." She moved to remove her   
top.   
Programming. Sexaroids. He backed off waving his hands in a gesture   
he'd picked up from Ranma. "Hey, wait a minute! That's not what I was   
trying to suggest!"   
Lou seemed to find revelation in his action. "Oh, I see." She   
concluded. "Somebody loaded the regular Skysaber profile into you   
instead of the hentai one." She sat back on her chair, smirking.   
"Whoever buys you is in for a surprise."   
Nam had been examining them. "Do you think it really might have   
been an accident, Lou? Anri and I are more cute than sexy. Couldn't he   
be for the same type of buyer?"   
Jared nodded to the five of them. They were helpful, but weren't   
telling him too much. He decided to investigate on his own. "If you   
will excuse me, ladies." With that he activated his invisibility power.   
Sylvie and Meg shot to their feet. "What?" They both cried, staring   
around, but he was nowhere to be seen.   
"A hologram?" Nam ventured, trying to understand things.   
"Couldn't be, he held my hand. I felt it." Lou corrected, also   
searching.   
"But they couldn't make a Sexaroid that could really do that!"   
Sylvie practically yelled. "They don't have a visual stealth system for   
anything, including the combat boomers!" 

Very interesting, Jared thought, slipping out of the room past   
the light armored security robot at the entrance. In a short while he'd   
explored most of the open shuttle. It was a cargo craft climbing up out   
of the atmosphere, carrying some workers and more expensive equipment.   
Luxury goods (like the sexaroids, he presumed) were kept separate from   
the main hold. It was a reasonable guess that the guard boomer was   
there to keep passengers from sampling the goods.   
Well, they looked like people, they acted like people. He could   
care less if some company had built them. Unless there was some kind of   
override function someone could use to turn them against him he was   
willing to call them friends.   
He located what he needed and returned to the small room, dropping   
back into the visible spectrum.   
They all turned to ask as one. "How did you do that?"   
Jared shrugged, laying out objects. "To be honest, I don't really   
know. I just started doing it one day. I think it has something to do   
with altering the bands of light, moving them around me or something.   
All I can tell you for sure is that it works."   
Separating one bundle from the pile Jared handed it to Lou. "There   
you go, Lou. One pair of technician's rank tabs, a jumpsuit uniform,   
the full kit."   
The sexaroid stared at the bundle, not taking it. "What is that   
for?"   
Jared looked around at the girls. He sighed, ducking his head away.   
"Look, you all are very beautiful. It's just the life you take for   
granted sounds an awful lot like slavery to me. Somebody owning you."   
He shivered. "The whole idea of being property just freaks me out. You   
don't even have to add prostitution to that before I'm gone." He   
gestured to the clothing and gear he'd brought back with him. "I   
thought that I'd offer you all a chance to get out with me. From what   
I've seen it should be pretty easy to slip in among the techs. There we   
can pass ourselves off long enough to get a better handle on our   
situation and maybe find a way to avoid getting caught and enslaved for   
good."   
He was regarded in wondering astonishment.   
"Are you an infiltration model, then?" Nam asked.   
His back straightened. "Either I am the real Skysaber, or I have   
been made to think so. Either way doesn't matter one bit to me. I'm   
still going to behave according to what I think is right. Sleeping with   
strangers and consenting to be property aren't right, therefore I will   
avoid them. First step in that is to avoid the attention of those who   
would seek to force me into it, and that can best be done by being   
where they are not looking. Do any of you wish to come with me?"   
There was a mass scramble for the uniforms he was offering. Their   
sudden change astonished him.   
"Uh, any particular reason why the change of heart?" He asked in   
puzzlement.   
Lou mashed her lips to his, releasing him to speak even while she   
continued dressing. "Skysaber, to anyone else we're just toys with all   
the rights of a toaster. You treat us like you care about us and   
expect us not to leave with you? I don't care if you're the screwiest   
boomer Genom ever manufactured. I'm with you."   
"Goes for the rest of us, too." Meg added, sliding her legs into   
the ship pants.   
"Will we get deactivated for this?" Anri asked, buttoning the last   
clasp on her jacket.   
"Only if we get caught, and then not likely." Nam concluded.   
"They'll just assume it's a programming aberration and at worst they'll   
test us. Sexaroids are too valuable to throw away."   
Jared was looking in some concern at his double, the one who still   
hadn't moved. "What about him?"   
"Useless." Lou informed him.   
"Yup," Meg supported. "Unless you know the activation phrase you'll   
never get him to move, then he'll bond with the first person he sees.   
Their loyalty is one of the reasons why the Skysaber series is so   
popular. Well, that and the fact that they're capable of turning into   
girls and back into guys."   
Jared nearly got sick. "You mean my curse makes me a popular   
sexaroid?" He went and threw up in a convenient disposal. Cleaning   
off his mouth he gathered himself back up. "Okay, sorry. Danger we all   
share, I guess. Now, what skills have we got besides the obvious?"   
The girls all looked at each other. Meg shrugged, volunteering.   
"We're an 'Executive Aide' package. I'm the technician, with enough   
repair skills to maintain all of us, plus a private home and office and   
a small motor pool. Nam here is a domestic; cooking, cleaning, first   
aid and all that is her thing. Anri is a secretarial. She also   
maintains network security. Sylvia is a personal trainer, doubling as a   
bodyguard. And Lou is a performer, singing, dancing and the rest of   
that is her deal. That's all in addition to the 'obvious' skill package   
we all share, how to dress and act and drive a car. Our skills are to   
either add to our sale value or to appeal to a certain kind of   
individual." Her green eyes bored into his. "We can all pick up more   
skills later, either from programming chips or practice."   
Jared probed, alert for advantage. "How do the programming chips   
work?"   
Meg, the sole redhead among the girls shrugged. "They're just   
standard optical chips with a skill encoded. Just like humans use in   
their cyberware."   
"Do you need to keep the chip loaded or can you download it into   
memory?" The superspy pressed, sensing a course of action.   
"Oh, we definitely download. Once in online memory then it takes   
about a week for the skill to be fully assimilated and integrated so we   
can put it into practice." Meg regarded him curiously while she   
finished putting her jacket's buttons together.   
"Only assimilating one skill at once?" Jared asked.   
"That's right. But we can carry up to ten chips at a time in our   
jack."   
"Do you get any kind of effect right away?"   
Meg pondered. "Sure... I think. What I think is the case is that   
while the chip is loaded we get to use the skill fine, just like a   
human who put the chip in their cyberware should. It's integrating it   
into our own memory that takes the extra time, and it's supposed to be   
fuzzy for a while."   
Jared was in deep consideration. "Hmm, I don't suppose you have   
any chips, but could you make one? And could you all benefit from the   
same chip?"   
The sexaroid pondered his question, eventually responding. "I guess   
I could, and I suppose we could share. Why?"   
Jared smiled and stretched his muscles. "Because they haven't given   
you too many skills to start with and the more you have, the easier   
life becomes. For instance, if you all had technical skills of one sort   
or another it would be easier to pass ourselves off as techs. If you   
had the equipment could you create a skill chip based off of your own   
knowledge that could be used by the others?"   
All eyes turned to Anri, who considered thoughtfully. "I guess I   
could. It's all standard programming so far. I don't think I could do   
it once we all had a chance to refine our skills."   
Jared nodded decisively.   
"Good, because this shuttle is carrying all sorts of equipment for   
the station, and we have hours if not days before we get there. I doubt   
we'll find anything so useful as a carton of combat skillchips or   
espionage programming, but if Sylvie and Lou were to get technical   
programming we'd fit in alot better. If our enemy gets wind of the idea   
that we may be hiding ourselves as humans they'll think they'll know   
our skills and limits and will look for people matching those. The less   
we match their profile of us the harder we become to find."   
Lou put an hand on his shoulder. "They'll have our descriptions.   
All our appearance and statistical data is on the shuttle's computer,   
due to be transferred to the station."   
The boy frowned. "A problem. Anri, if I got you to a terminal do   
you think you could access that file? We'd better erase it if we can,   
alter it if we can't, alter our appearance if those don't work. But   
that's the last choice, and it's not a good one. Our best bet is to   
take sole possession of the file. There are likely things we'll want to   
know about us that they never bothered to tell us. Any secret destruct   
or override codes are likely going to be in that file."   
She nodded seriously.   
"First we need to escape." Jared concluded. "And for that we need a   
plan, and to get one I'm going to need time to think, as right now I've   
no idea how we could do it," he mulled. With his various enhancements   
escape wasn't an issue for him, there simply was no problem. He could   
transport down to the planet's surface with ease... except, he'd never   
actually been there on this version of it, and that made things   
complicated, not to mention he was still a bit iffy about it and wasn't   
too sure he could carry passengers... And that was all assuming that   
those abilities of his still worked.   
It was sounding like that was a last resort, and if he could get   
away with this group conventionally that would be a better idea.   
How to do it, though? The question plagued him for moments, then,   
still a bit unused to all this, he checked through his catalog of   
Superspy items and came to an idea that made him grin. He looked up   
after his half-minute of contemplation.   
"Sylvie, you've got bodyguard programming, right?"   
The beautiful brown-haired girl shrugged. "That's what they paid   
for me to be."   
"And Meg is a tech and Lou is a performer?" He asked to confirm,   
smiling. He got two puzzled yet helpful nods in response. "Well," Jared   
confidently rubbed his hands together. "Taken separately those aren't   
much. Combine those skills and you've got a really good start for a   
covert ops team."   
Meg and the rest of the girls shared confused looks. "But how? You   
mean we ought to work together? How is that any different than what we   
are programmed to do?"   
"Actually, it isn't much. You'd pick that up sooner or later. No, I   
was in all seriousness thinking of something more along the lines of   
'If each one of you had those skills' which makes the whole equation   
vastly different. You see, a performer of no matter what kind, has to   
be something of an actor. An actor can pretty easily imitate another   
type of person if the role is general and undemanding. That's exactly   
the skill you want for slipping past guards and whatnot, but if only   
one of you can act, the others can still be easily caught. Then still   
even the best actor can flub a role or be caught up by security checks,   
which in this type of situation can easily turn hazardous. That's the   
sort of situation where you'd need to be able to handle yourself in   
combat, because to be caught is utter destruction once things have   
progressed that far. Well, if only one of you can fight, and it isn't   
the actor, then you'd be messed up from the start, like trying to walk   
on two broken legs. No. Then we're going to be doing lots of stuff you   
shouldn't ordinarily be able to do, which means that no one is going to   
do it for us, and since this is a space station we're going to most   
things we'll want to accomplish will be very technical, and it's just   
better that more of you know how to do them. It'll speed things up and   
if one get's hurt that doesn't entirely stop the rest from escaping."   
"I guess I'm not very important." Nam offered softly.   
"Au contraire!" The superspy offered a gallantly contradictory   
gesture. "No, a proper domestic is going to add more joy to life than   
all the combat training there ever was. A good fighter can protect   
some things, but fighting skills don't necessarily give them anything   
all that much worth protecting. Do not sell yourself short, Nam. You   
are as vital to happy living as any person that ever was, and happiness   
is what we live life for! All the combat and other junk is just to   
keep others from destroying happiness that you and your kind create."   
He shot a confident glance at Anri. "And don't you be thinking that   
you aren't vital, either. Network security and the breaking of it are   
almost the same, and secretaries are those that go about getting things   
for others; and massaging the system to get useful things like IDs,   
clothing, housing, gear and equipment, not to mention transportation,   
is just about the perfect skill to have unless we can get off this   
place asap."   
Meg was regarding him curiously. "But how are we going to do that?   
Our skills came from the programmers at the factory. We don't just plug   
into a wall and share them. I'd need equipment and time... all sorts of   
stuff." She gave him a very unhappy grimace. "And then I still couldn't   
operate on myself, so my skills would be outside of the mix."   
"No, no, no!" He titched a negatory finger, which swiveled to point   
back at himself. "I will be the one doing the swapping among the rest   
of you, monitoring the equipment, which I already happen to have." He   
pulled the necessary, portable versions of the boomer AI editing   
machinery out of his Standard Light Urban Survival Pack, laying them on   
the table in front of the bugeyed girls. "Better than the chips we'd   
previously discussed, this will swap implants of the skill software   
directly - just like at the factory."   
"But first!" He chimed into their silence. "I am going to take a   
nap." And with that he pulled up the boomer programming and repair   
skills from his One True Watch's catalog of options, queued them up in   
the Synoptic Teacher, slid it on his head, and laid himself down to   
sleep.   
An hour later he awoke to find Meg had already arranged the girls   
into a near-circle with their backs to each other, and Nam (who, he was   
surprised to find, was a nursing model as part of her domestic   
responsibilities) just lowered the scalpel that she'd used to cut a   
thin strip of skin open at the back of Anri's head, exposing an   
interface not normally accessible for daily usage. Then Meg took the   
handy set of waiting cables she'd already laid out and slid their plugs   
into those exposed sockets. Sylvie and Lou were already cabled and just   
nervously waiting for the operation to proceed. The other ends of all   
their wires joining at a complicated but competently arranged junction   
box.   
"Oh, you're awake!" Nam noticed, smiling beatifically.   
"Yes, I am." He replied unnecessarily, rising comfortably into a   
sitting position as he glanced over Meg's work, nodding politely. "Very   
well done. The setup's almost complete except for you and Nam here."   
Meg smiled at him approving of her work. "Thanks. She's just about   
to do my plugs and then I'll try not to fumble the scalpel opening   
hers."   
"No need." He happily corrected. "I am quite skillful with a   
knife." He smiled at Nam. "You do not need to fear scarring."   
She gave a little involuntary sigh of relief. Meg looked   
embarrassed.   
Taking the scalpel he had the last two girls hooked to their cables   
in moments, then they all laid down as he hit the button to proceed.   
The junction box sent the commands to sleep, and he immediately began   
initiating some protocols to arrange the safe swapping of their   
non-redundant programming. The complicated setup began churning busily   
through all the data, noting in cybernetic relief that it was all still   
fresh from the factory and therefore able to be modified as he   
intended, and swiftly the work of swapping skill programs was rapidly   
underway. The newly-educated spy spent some time ensuring that   
everything was going right, that personality algorithms would remain   
unaffected and that proper safeguards were in all place, then   
nursemaided the procedure through to completion.   
As he was really using a quite powerful setup the data exchange was   
over in a short amount of time and the girls began to awaken, feeling a   
little stiff and groggy as their minds absorbed the newly arrived flood   
of extra skills.   
Jared was calmly going about assisting them, removing plugs and   
cables no longer necessary. "I took the liberty of exchanging   
poorer-grade programs with higher, in the case where more than one of   
you knew a skill but programmed to different levels of ability. Most of   
you could handle a spacecraft, for example, but Nam's piloting software   
was really quite advanced so I gave you all copies of hers. There are   
naturally going to be differences, of course. I didn't allow any   
alteration of your personalities, and basic aptitudes were set long   
before you rolled out of the factory so no chance of altering those, so   
what you do with those skills is going to be different. But all the   
same I think we're all on to a winning strategy here. You each know   
enough to get along very well indeed."   
The superspy smirked, adding. "I also deleted all of your property   
identification tags. Rooting about in there I found there were subsets   
and overrides and codes that could've blown everything if they'd been   
activated, so I got rid of them. The loyalty imprints were especially   
tricky, but they're gone now. It's just as well. They weren't   
programmed very intelligently and probably would've slipped in a couple   
of years anyway."   
"How come we weren't feeling any loyalty before now?" Anri came to   
a sitting position, rubbing skin back over the socket at the back of   
her head.   
Jared shrugged expressively. "You hadn't met your owner and he had   
no chance to activate them yet. Be glad, the kind of guy who has to buy   
women isn't going to be much of a prize to meet. I don't doubt you   
would have gotten sick of him very quickly. But you'd still have to   
love him due to programming restraints and the conflict would not have   
made you happy."   
Nam was just about to say something when warning lights and sirens   
announced the passengers should prepare for docking.   
The redheaded superspy shrugged, returning the equipment to his   
Standard Light Urban Survival Pack, ready to get his little covert ops   
team in motion and hopefully get one of them access to the shuttle's   
computer when the hulking soldier android suddenly filled up the door.   
"Just where do you think you're going?" Its vocal synthesizer   
growled.   
Jared had forgotten all about that thing. If it could speak it   
could probably hear and there went their plans. Unless...   
"Want to join us?" He asked.   
It raised a mighty hand. "I'm going to report this! You are all   
assigned..."   
Jared lowered his lightsaber as the security boomer's head hit the   
floor three seconds before its body. Rising from his stance he said.   
"There goes the stealth plan. Leaving bodies behind always complicates   
these things. I'd dispose of it, but I don't think detonating a plasma   
grenade inside a space shuttle would be such a good idea."   
Sylvie stared at him. "You said nothing to us about being a combat   
type. Just how many programs have they stuffed in you?"   
Jared couldn't help but grin. "Just about everything, I think.   
Planning to bail out?"   
Nam took Sylvie gently from him. "No, Sylvie, it doesn't matter   
what class he is. He's already helped us. Besides, wouldn't freedom be   
a fun thing?"   
They all considered that.   
"I guess it would be." Sylvie ventured, as if discovering the idea   
for the first time.   
Nam, Meg and Lou all grabbed their technician's packs. "Look, we've   
got to erase that data." Nam interceded.   
Jared gestured to the door. "Taking it is better. Our gateway is   
unguarded. If you'll move forward toward the control room there is a   
terminal just inside the doors going to the crew section. I hope you   
can work it. Oh, here." He handed Meg the Nerd Toy. "I hope you don't   
have to use it, but if someone walks in on you. This may be the best   
thing."   
Meg turned it down, smiling. Her eyes flashed eerily. "Don't need   
it. If someone walks in on us, they'll discover that these sexaroid   
functions can be used for more than stimulation." Seeing his puzzled   
look she elaborated. "Our eyes. We can use them to hypnotize.   
Ordinarily we're supposed to use it in our job, but it could put   
someone unconscious if we wanted to."   
He grinned. "Even better. Well, off with you. The rest of us will   
mingle to avoid getting caught here."   
The two parties split separate ways.   
A short time into the unloading process a station executive led a   
small party of boomers into the room to collect the sexaroids. The   
woman was shocked at the sight of the decapitated combat type, then   
assessed the missing cargo. Turning to her escort she ordered.   
"Seal off the shuttle, cordon off the landing area. I want every   
person who left this ship searched and verified! The most irreplaceable   
part of the cargo has gone missing. We are looking for the culprit, and   
we need to find those sexaroids immediately!"   
The nearest boomers bowed. "At once, Miss Erics. We shall begin   
immediately." The secretarial boomer began to relay commands to the   
station managers, while the bodyguard units began to spread out.   
Miss Erics put her hands on her hips and stood gazing on the   
statue-like figure of the inactive Skysaber sexaroid. "Pity you are   
nothing like you are supposed to be." She condemned the unit for the   
abomination it was, falling very short of the character it resembled,   
then she abruptly turned back to her duties. 

Jared, Sylvie and Anri stood in a huddle in the open cafeteria just   
outside the shuttle launch and landing bay. Each were sipping a hot   
cocoa and watching the departing passengers for their friends and   
traveling companions.   
Another man tried approaching one of the two girls but Jared   
flashed him a glare that said "Back off, man. Private property." About   
half had been turned away so far, others braving the glare to make an   
attempt on either Sylvie or Anri. The girls had been taught gentle   
turn-downs, but once or twice Skysaber had had to use his martial arts   
to get the point across.   
The station personnel were girl-happy. Somebody ought to do   
something about the ratios to keep them from getting hormone crazed. So   
far Jared had counted three men for every woman on-station. With those   
odds it was no wonder a few polite words or a glare weren't turning   
that many men away.   
"I wonder what could be keeping them?" Anri worried.   
"Could be anything. Waiting always seems to take too long." Jared   
crushed his empty cup and tossed it in a recycle bin. It hit the lid   
and banked in as lights and horns began to blare. Alarms were sounding   
and gates closing across the loading area. "Then again, they might have   
been caught." He amended.   
Sylvie was nervously dancing from foot to heel. "So what do we do?"   
Jared was measuring things carefully. "If they come out of there in   
the next thirty seconds, we join up and lose ourselves in the depths of   
the station."   
Twenty seconds passed in nervous anxiety. A file of security   
boomers ran out of the station and stemmed the tide of exiting   
passengers. Jared pushed himself off of the wall, declaring, "They'll   
never make it out alone."   
"So what do we do?" Anri pleaded, looking decidedly cute in her   
confusion.   
Jared tossed her a grin. "Good people look out for their friends.   
We go in after them, of course. Besides, they're looking for people   
trying to get out of the shuttle, not back in." 

Two grenades rolled to the feet of the wall of boomers. They looked   
down in time to catch the huge EMP explosion of the mighty little   
devices. The wall of boomers fell over like overbalanced statues, which   
is exactly what they'd become.   
EMP explosions fried all the sensitive electronics in the area.   
Cameras and radios went blank, power cut off to parts of the landing   
area while emergency lighting struggled to cope. The humans and   
technicians aboard the shuttle raced past the fallen barricade holding   
their assorted luggage and fleeing for the still-open exits. The human   
tide passed over and around the security checkpoints the boomers and   
human guards were trying to set up.   
"Now's our chance, ladies." Jared gestured his two companions into   
the remarkably clear area just around the cargo shuttle. They ran back   
aboard with little or no problem, sealing the disembarking hatch behind   
them.   
Inside the shuttle things were less of a mess than outside. The   
people had left in a panic, overturning consoles and leaving debris all   
over. Lights and electronics still struggled to function, but the   
ship's construction had been a slight help in alleviating the effects   
of the EMP blast.   
"We'll search the forward sectors first." Jared commanded. "And   
stay together. If we split up we'll lose more time finding each other   
than we'd spend searching for our friends."   
They ran down the corridor to the crew section. On their way they   
saw the open door to their enclosure room. Outside it a pair of groggy   
boomers swayed in an effort to keep on their feet. The pair spotted the   
oncoming trio and opened their mouth cannons wide to fire. Jared leapt   
at them, his lightsaber springing to life.   
The trio ran on, leaving chunks of battle boomer to slide apart   
behind them.   
Lady Erics climbed unsteadily out of the compartment. Her   
secretarial boomer had shorted completely. Since she'd been standing so   
close, the minor explosion had singed her uniform and burned her hair,   
but in spite of that she could almost swear that the unit that   
destroyed her bodyguards had been a Skysaber style sexaroid. Too   
befuddled to act upon it, she stumbled out toward the rear hatch. 

Jared and his two companions burst in upon the other three in the   
pilot's cabin. They were huddled in fright by the back wall. Jared   
looked on them kindly. "Hi. Get frightened?" He asked in an   
understanding way.   
Nam pulled herself up, Meg was holding a gun she'd gotten from   
somewhere. "I don't... the data's downloaded, but not erased. I did   
that much. But soon police boomers were running around and we had to   
hide..."   
"It's okay." Jared soothed. "It's perfectly understandable to   
panic. After all, you haven't been free more than an hour or so.   
Dealing with the unexpected takes time and courage to get used to. Come   
on. The ship looks clear. Anybody know how to pilot this thing?"   
All raised tentative hands. "We do."   
The True Skysaber gestured magnanimously toward the door. "Well,   
Captain Meg, Copilot Sylvie, your flight crew awaits you. Are we ready   
for takeoff?"   
The scattered sexaroids moved in a mass to the cockpit. There were   
seats for all of them there, and the systems had been far distant from   
the EMP explosions. Meg did a quick check that revealed them to be down   
to 30% reaction fuel, the midship sensors were out, but otherwise they   
were able to fly.   
"Very well." Jared strapped himself in to one of the rear seats.   
"Launch us, if you would be so kind. I wouldn't worry about the fuel   
status. Thirty percent left probably means they regularly make a round   
trip in this thing. Should be more than adequate for what is, in   
essence, a very long fall with occasional braking thrusts." 

The chaos in the shuttle launch bay was just beginning to subside   
into order again when the large docking clamps that held the spaceship   
down suddenly strained in their moorings as the main ship engines   
fired. Emergency clamps released and the hulking ship shot out of the   
massive bay, spreading a fresh panic among the shocked employees.   
The massive station crew managed to get its wits together and   
launch intercept fighters only after the cargo shuttle was well on its   
way back into the atmosphere. The pursuit lost it somewhere in the   
region of Japan.   
An official inquiry was launched, but no crash site was found.   
Accusations began to fly of one corporation or another having staged   
the raid and using their own private landing fields for retrieving the   
stolen ship. But, like all the best raids, the ship was never found and   
the inquiry went nowhere. 

Somewhere in the Coral Sea 

"Hiya, Meg! How are we doing?"   
The redhaired sexaroid looked up out from under the console to see   
the redhaired superspy grinning down at her. She smiled back up at him,   
standing up to wipe her hands clean on a rag. "Well, that's about done   
it. We should have full system control restored. There really wasn't   
much to repair from the EMP blasts. You shorted a few door controls,   
but the midship area was surprising clear of important stuff. All of   
the computers are forward and the engines are behind."   
Helping her to her feet turned into a warm hug, and he whispered in   
her ear. "The important stuff, my dear, was you, not the shuttle."   
She melted, oozing up against him, but he didn't notice, releasing   
her to get some space to smile mischievously down at her. "Want to know   
what we took with us on our abrupt getaway?"   
Matching him smirk for smirk, she nodded. They tore off to the rear   
toward the main cargo area, him taking and holding her hand as he   
dragged her excitedly that way.   
The Orca class cargo shuttle was very much the semi truck of space.   
It had a tiny control cab forward with very small storage used mostly   
for special or extremely valuable cargoes while the back was a shipping   
container of immense proportions, backed by equally powerful engines.   
The EMP bombs had gone off in the comparatively small passenger   
sections where there really wasn't much to damage.   
Arriving back at the cavernous cargo holds, Meg stopped and   
whistled admiration. There were thousands of packing crates secured by   
nets into racks all along the walls and ceiling. In the center of the   
floor were piled construction materials strapped down and bolted. Nam   
was standing on a platform twenty feet off the main floor cataloging   
the wealth of industrial machinery in long rows. Anri had found a huge   
boomer approximately the size of a small commercial fishing ship lashed   
down to the decks and deactivated, near stacks of coffin-sized crates   
holding space development and other boomers as well as powersuits for   
labor in vacuum.   
In other places Lou was skipping across the tops of several well   
cushioned shipping boxes which labels revealed to be the complete   
disassembled parts to a mainframe supercomputer. And Sylvie was amusing   
herself, having found out a store of weapons which she was lovingly   
cataloging.   
Meg was impressed.   
"You haven't seen the best part." Jared told her, taking her by the   
hand to a stack of outwardly unremarkable containers and beaming with   
gladness. "This!" He told her, motioning toward the unimpressive   
containers. "Is a complete nanofactory!"   
Meg's jaw dropped.   
There were those who knew about the nanite-based self-repair   
functions of some boomer models, and there were fusion-capable boomers   
whose very substance could meld with other artifacts to increase the   
boomer's capacity and power - all of which was achieved by the use of   
specially tailored (yet rarely self-replicating so as to reduce the   
chance for the whole thing going out of control) nanomachines.   
But where the technology in combat boomers was limited to combat   
specific roles, the true best use for nanites was in fabrication. You   
get yourself a vat of the nanomachines under careful computer control,   
and whatever you put in that vat the nanites can recreate in nearly any   
shape desired. Put in a wrecked car and get back out a brand new one,   
or two washing machines and a stack of toaster ovens, or a pile of   
weapons. The technology was limited only in that it couldn't turn one   
molecule or atom into another. So if you put in steel, whatever you got   
out would be made from steel.   
But the nanomachines for such a facility were hideously expensive,   
and plain old industrial automation was faster. So nanofactories were   
quite rare. They were versatile, and could create nearly anything that   
you had plans and rawmats for. But there simply wasn't the need for   
them in most applications, other alternatives were cheaper in operation   
and setup and had higher production rates. A factory using assembly   
lines could be churning out thousands of cars at a time, a nanofactory   
only one.   
So nanofactories saw only limited roles. Small ones were used in   
prototyping to create one-time runs of parts used in experiments of all   
types. But the really large facilities only saw use in orbit, where   
disposal of garbage was as big a problem as importation of raw   
materials, and they were literally swimming in baths of solar power.   
Nanofactories in that sort of situation were vital, as they were the   
ultimate in recycling, turning waste into rawmats and solving two   
problems at the same time.   
"Unfortunately we can't run it." Jared confessed, sighing   
regretfully. "The dang thing consumes more power than most small towns   
- waaay too much for the shuttle's generators to handle. And while we   
have parts of a fusion reactor on board, they cannot be assembled into   
anything like a working model. There's just too few of them."   
The redhaired lady sexaroid chuckled, looking up at her benefactor.   
"You know, that's odd. With a functioning nanofactory we could make   
the parts for the fusion plant. But we can't run the factory without   
the plant."   
"It is amusing." Jared wryly admitted. "But if we could run it   
another way, even for a very short while, we could get the reactor   
parts to have it up all the time."   
"Not inside this bay." Meg looked around at the tightly cramped   
space.   
"True." Jared admitted, sucking in his lips briefly to chew on them   
while thinking. "So it becomes imperative if we want to run this stuff   
to find a place to unload."   
"A genuine secret base?" She asked girlishly.   
"Of course!" He replied with fire in his eyes. "But for it to be   
really secret we'd have to be the ones to build it." The spy amended.   
"There's not much use in having billions of dollars in valuable   
machines if you can't set them up and use them. But there's even less   
point in having it all taken away because you didn't take care to hide   
it properly."   
"So what's the plan?" Lou, who had been listening, hopped off a low   
crate and joined them.   
Jared shrugged, regarding the blonde kindly. "Well, there's lots of   
work to be done, but we've got a force of space construction boomers   
who ought to be able to do it if we tweak them a bit so they can work   
underwater. We've got plenty of tools. I think the thing to do is find   
a good seamount and drill ourselves a nice headquarters."   
"There's lots of tools and machinery in here, but drilling tools we   
don't have." Lou sadly shook her head.   
Jared bit his lip. "That's right. Not much need for them in space,   
is there? How about explosives?"   
Lou shrugged prettily. "Military grade? Some, yes. Blasting? No. We   
can put craters in armor plating, but not move much rock."   
"So we're going to have to mix some, then. Or recalibrate lasers to   
do underwater cutting work." The spy pondered, then sighed, rolling his   
eyes. "This would all be soo much easier if we had the nanofactory   
running. Drilling machines aren't complicated, and we could have the   
project done with less fuss and bother than any other way. Blasting is   
just too obvious to hide easily, plus it creates less-stable tunnels.   
Stability is a concern if we're going to be living there."   
The trio spend a moment in silent contemplation.   
"Jared," Nam called out, joining them. "We've got a problem. There   
aren't any medical facilities in the load. I checked. The best we've   
got is a few first aid kits in the crew area. If one of us becomes sick   
or injured..." She left the note hanging.   
"And construction work sees alot of injuries, even deaths." Jared   
agreed, nodding. Then he brightened. "So what we've got to do is build   
a base to set up our equipment. To do that we're going to need to fill   
in holes in our present outfitting, and to do that we're going to   
have to locate those things we need and obtain them. Since we're   
talking several billion dollars worth of high tech property the   
simplest and most direct solution is to steal what we need from bad   
guys who already have it." He posed, thinking. "So we're going to want   
some more development boomers, space or sea types would both do. We   
need some esoteric gear to make much of what we already have   
functional... advanced medical facilities because injuries to you girls   
aren't easy to fix, drilling or mining equipment of course. And last of   
all we're going to require some very rare components to get our fusion   
reactor functional, that is if it isn't a whole lot easier to just   
steal an entire reaction system of another type, like an old-type   
nuclear plant. But those are heavy, already installed, and non-portable   
for the most part."   
"Steal it?" Meg thought. "Okay, I guess that would work. But why?"   
Jared shrugged "We are stealing as an act of war. Genom and its   
cronies are ruining everything good or decent on this world, and   
slaughtering innocents at their whim to save a few yen on testing. We   
oppose them because they first declared war on us, and as our enemies   
that makes them a legitimate target. Since the corporation that runs   
the stations is just a pawn of Genom, well, that just makes everything   
fair."   
"War?" Nam appeared puzzled. "How do you steal as an act of war?"   
"It works this way," the redhaired superspy informed her, raising a   
finger. "In olden days generals spoke about tactics as the way to win   
battles, maneuvering troops. Since the start of mechanized armies   
generals sneered at tactics as the way to win and spoke in loving tones   
about logistics, maneuvering supplies. But frankly, in World War II and   
most of the succeeding conflicts it became really obvious that you   
can't maneuver what you don't have, and the nations with the highest   
production won the wars. So, we are in conflict with Genom, the highest   
production entity on the planet, or in this solar system. The way to   
beat them is to reduce their production capacity while raising our own.   
Thankfully we are far from being their only enemy, so there's   
considerable attention they've got to give to other things if they want   
to retain their place of dominance. That gives us opportunity, which I   
intend to use by taking production from them and adding it to our own -   
the cheapest and simplest route to accomplishing both our goals at   
once. And I intend to begin by procuring those bits that would bring   
much of what we already have to functional status."   
"So where do we find them?" Meg asked.   
Jared sighed. "The parts we have are all space related. It stands   
to reason that our best bet of finding compatible parts are the same   
sources from which we got this shipment. Especially if we can look over   
some cargo manifests, we can almost certainly find much of what we need   
to get what we've already got functional."   
"That still won't get us mining equipment." Lou observed, cocking   
her head cutely.   
"It might." Jared shrugged. "After all, they intend to mine the   
moon. The gear for that has to come from somewhere. But let's just   
start with what we can and see where things go from there. It is highly   
unlikely that all our needs will be satisfied by one more raid." 

The orbital launch platform at MegaTokyo was typical of the orbital   
stations that had replaced much of air traffic across the globe. The   
vast plain of bleached white concrete shimmered in the sun, broken by   
alloy towers that were the various launch vehicles standing upright in   
their pits. Maintenance crews and cargo transshipment were as busy and   
as hectic as in any major port, with company inspectors and customs   
officials there to take care of their share (or receive their share of   
the take) of smuggling.   
With so busy an environment it went perfectly unnoticed that one   
maintenance crew, made up almost entirely of women, had parked in the   
recesses of the control tower's inner reaches. With their toolboxes and   
coveralls, as well as the studious way they went about their work, many   
an inspector could pass them by with nothing more than a word or two   
about how well they seemed to be pursuing their job, whatever it was.   
The cables leading up from a portable diagnostic computer to the base's   
communications hub, exposed in an open panel in the wall, just seemed   
to be part of the business.   
It was, it just wasn't maintenance related.   
"I found it." Anri smiled, typing away, her face lit by the   
flickering screen. "Shuttle alpha beta two under spacecorp's registry,   
heading up to Genaros 5 with a load of boomer labor, replacement parts   
that includes most of what we need, and another nanofactory is being   
loaded on right now to replace the one they lost."   
"We hardly need another when we can't run the one we've got now."   
Meg groused as she positioned herself to look. "Don't they have any   
generating capacity?"   
Anri shook her head. "Sorry, the only power generation on the list   
is half a thousand tons of solar collectors on shuttle beta six four,   
also on spacecorp's registry and heading to Genaros 5, but the shipment   
is under guard."   
"Sixty two security boomers and a Doberman." Meg whistled. "That's   
formidable."   
"What else is going up in that shuttle?" Jared asked, carefully   
under his breath as he pretended to play around with the comm cables.   
Actually, he found quite to his surprise a hidden relay bug like their   
own spliced in and began removing it.   
"Top Secret." Anri told him, typing away. "Most of the rest is   
classified, but this isn't even entered into the computer."   
Jared nodded to himself. "That's the good stuff, then. Anything   
worth that type of security is either very worth having or even more   
worth denying to our enemy." He came to a conclusion. "Alright, this is   
what we'll do. You girls proceed with the plan to take the shuttle with   
the parts we need, and I'll do what I can to take the other out of   
action."   
"Right." They nodded. 

Five sexaroids in pilot's uniforms too baggy to follow their curves   
(and stuffed with towels to disguise them) walked up the access ramp   
after exiting the elevator of the loading arm extending to one of the   
spaceport's waiting shuttles. There were no cameras out here, the   
intense blasts of heat during regular liftoffs would have fried any   
they tried to install. The inspection worker who stood with a clipboard   
to sign off for launch had his gaze met with a pair of beautiful brown   
eyes that started mysteriously flashing.   
The man's face went slack. He stumbled off to the elevator and   
would remember nothing but a vague impression the regular crew had   
boarded.   
The regular crew lay asleep in their quarters. About ten minutes   
ago five beautiful women had entered, eyes had flashed, and all the   
crew had suddenly decided to party. Not realizing the women had left   
with their flight uniforms, they broke out the booze.   
"Systems check." Sylvie ordered, having grabbed the uniform of the   
shuttle captain in the shuffle and automatically fitting herself to the   
role.   
"All systems are green." Nam reported.   
"Requesting station clearance now." Anri reported, typing where her   
small portable computer was tied into the shuttle's comm systems,   
feeding the control tower an image of the flight crew they'd expect to   
see requesting liftoff.   
The five girls grinned when the console speakers reported. "Shuttle   
alpha beta two you are clear for liftoff."   
"Roger control." Sylvie answered, though really it was Anri feeding   
the responses back to the tower and she was effectively talking to   
herself right now.   
Settling snug into their seats, the sexaroid crew prepared to   
launch. 

The trick with Doberman boomers was they were mental midgets, about   
the same level as a pet. They would attack anything that wasn't   
broadcasting a friendly IFF signal. So in order to keep them from   
mindlessly destroying anything in their territory they were kept locked   
up in cryogenic kennels, held in the machine equivalent of suspended   
animation until they were released to kill something.   
This made it sadly easy for certain superspies to access routine   
maintenance hatches on the kennel, patch through to the doberman's   
small brain as maintenance or repair people sometimes had to do,   
quickly crack a passcode via the Cellslicer, and reprogram the droid to   
think of an entirely different IFF signal as 'friendly.'   
Now if they activated the darn thing it would rip everything around   
it to pieces. On that thought, he also reprogrammed the kennel's   
release codes just in case they tried activating it when he didn't   
want everything in that cyberdroid's vicinity destroyed. Now that only   
left sixty two security boomers.   
Nothing like the 55-C series that Genom would develop in, what was   
it, six years? Yah, that most heinous of cyberdroids wouldn't even be   
street tested against the Knight Sabers until 2032, so, yah, that was   
six years away. The present series just weren't cut out of the same   
cloth, even the Doberman series had a number of upgrades to look   
forward to before they were as tough as shown in the anime. Heh, the   
ubiquitous mouth-laser weapon system appearing everywhere in the show   
hadn't even made its introduction yet. Which raised the possibility   
that something could be done to halt its development.   
Shaken out of his introspection by the rumble of engines followed   
by the vice-like grip of launch, Jared drew his Nerd Toy, activating   
the lightsaber function. It was now, when the pilots were all consumed   
in dealing with the stress of launch and the multitude of things that   
detailed, and when the engines were at their peak driving them up into   
orbit and putting out more interference than a bucketful of sensor   
jammers, that his real opportunity lay. With onboard radios down the   
security couldn't communicate, and that gave him ten minutes of action   
time.   
The first two security boomers fells to a single slice of his blade   
as he came out of concealment among the crates behind them. 

"How are we doing, Nam?" Sylvie asked without looking from her   
controls.   
"We are leaving port radar range and passing into satellite   
detection area. Window is two minutes, thirty seconds away. Main   
boosters have completed firing."   
"Anri?"   
"Yes?"   
"Notify ground that we have a problem."   
"Alright, beginning transmission." She typed away, sending the   
messages through her machine so that ground control would see the   
images she sent instead of their real faces. 

One man fighting sixty opponents is a losing proposition in normal   
cases. Even if the man is profoundly skilled there's got to be some   
equalizer like a corresponding lack of skill among his enemies in order   
to make that possible.   
However, in a situation of communications blackout as existed   
within the confines of a shuttle during launch, it could be carefully   
arranged into a series of some sixty ambushes, in which case a   
well-trained monkey could stand a chance against sixty men. The   
cyberdroids were not hot on thought processes either. That was   
something that was going to come in time, and indeed, it was AI   
advancements that enabled them to appear so close to human that was   
part of how the 55-C series came to be Genom's best selling product.   
"Thirty-four, thirty-five..."   
Jared shot the two boomers guarding the cockpit approach corridor   
in the back of the head, once each, putting away his laser pistol even   
as they crashed lifelessly to the deck. If not for WWWA enhancements he   
probably wouldn't have been able to walk during liftoff, but as it was   
he was managing fine. Sneaking around a bend in the passageway he saw a   
lone boomer guarding access to the shuttle's computer core and shot it   
down just as it spotted him.   
"Thirty-six. Okay, the forward sections are clear. Now to see   
what's left in the rear bay." He turned around and began heading to the   
aft section, taking careful note that he was slightly behind on time   
and deciding to jog.   
In the computer bay, which he'd not entered, a woman sat staring at   
her screens in disbelief. The first reason was clear enough, for four   
minutes now she'd been watching a man move on a launching shuttle   
where G-forces had her pinned to her own seat. The next was just as   
obvious, said man was easily cutting down combat boomers that had been   
promoted by Genom as the latest in high-end security. That he was doing   
so casually and quickly only added to the amazement.   
But what really floored Miss Erics, chief of security on Genaros 5   
and overseeing this cargo shipment personally because of its extreme   
value, was that was SKYSABER out there doing all this! She could be   
sure, and was growing more certain with every moment. The Nerd Toy, his   
laser pistol, the cheerful banter to himself as he was openly more   
concerned with the time this operation of his was taking than any doubt   
of its success. He was... well, he was so downright shocking he could   
even...   
...could he even be real?   
So what side did that place her on, if the most virtuous superspy   
in the universe was acting against her? Somehow her fingers failed to   
find the alarm button as she just continued watching the cavorting   
figure in combat, now tearing into the guard of the cargo section. 

There had been a long conversation, the sexaroids reporting through   
the images of Anri's computer a growing number of electrical faults and   
problems, which Sylvie made sure to maintain the illusion of by minute   
course alterations.   
The spaceport controllers were now frantic, appearing as it did to   
them a disastrous flood of faults. But the sexaroids remained calm.   
"How much longer, Nam?" Sylvie asked.   
"Ten seconds. Counting down: nine, eight, seven, four..."   
"Four!?" Meg, nervous in her chair panicked. "What happened to five   
and six?"   
"I'm coming to them." Nam giggled, enjoying teasing her friend.   
Speaking quickly to make up for lost seconds, she finished. "Three,   
two, one, five, six... NOW!"   
A charge jettisoned out an airlock exploded, a large enough blast   
to be seen by the cameras now trained on the 'distressed' vessel, but   
timed precisely to be just distant enough to avoid damage, even though   
it didn't look like it. What it looked like a catastrophic failure of   
one of their drive engines, which Sylvie, acting as pilot, was very   
careful to mimic in turning their supposedly crippled ship planetside   
in a lurching dive.   
"Mayday, mayday, MegaTokyo Tower, have lost starboard engine and   
part of..." The recording stopped just as a carefully planned second   
blast exploded not far out of their cockpit.   
"Ouch, that was too close." Lou flinched from her copilot's couch   
at the near burst.   
"Maybe," Sylvie agreed. "Now comes the hard part, pretending to   
crash and still pulling out a landing to leave us all in one piece."   
There came a bump and debris scattered in their falling starship's   
wake.   
"Hurray!" Nam cheered, raising a fist in the air.   
"Good driving, sis!" Meg reached forward to squeeze Sylvie's   
shoulder affectionately, her nervousness now gone.   
"With the navsatt gone..." Anri postulated.   
"The rest of this is a cinch." Lou grinned, leaning back in her   
chair to stretch. "Nothing else could track us this high, so we can   
land however we want, no more faked emergency."   
Sylvie smiled with the rest of them. "I'm still going to keep an   
act up, there may be other watchers we don't know about. But I'm not   
going to put us in danger anymore. From here on it it'll be easy."   
"Hurray!!" The rest all cheered. 

Miss Erics knew her presence aboard the shuttle to be a deeply held   
secret. She'd gone out of her way to hide it herself. What she could   
not understand was how had anyone managed to discover what was being   
shipped? The manifests couldn't be read as they were mostly blank, only   
covering a routine lift of bulk materials that should've warned away   
the curious. Price for good solar collectors was dropping all of the   
time, so it was not the sort of thing to inspire greed or lust,   
certainly not by anyone capable of fielding a 42-S sexaroid with   
capabilities so closely matching the real Skysaber.   
Such a boomer alone would be worth more than the cost of the   
shuttle and manifest cargo, so that left as the only possible answer   
that someone knew of the secret cargo being carried, and had learned of   
it in time to launch this interception.   
The very thought boggled her. She'd only barely learned in time to   
divert from her search for the last stolen shuttle in time to board   
this one. So whoever it was had sources of information far superior to   
hers, and she was on the very short list of people who were supposed to   
know about this secret. That thought joined several others as being   
almost too frightening to contemplate.   
She watched through the monitors as he dispatched the last of the   
security force. The boomers had stood less chance than apples against   
William Tell. She wasn't sure they would've been able to save the   
shuttle even if she had warned them. The alarm might just as well   
have been interpreted as a hull breach and confused them, and they   
hadn't needed to be confused to be cut down like grass before that   
scything saber.   
Sitting quietly in her chair as the vast thrum of launch and the   
huge hand-like pressure of acceleration continued, she noted that the   
last of her guard force had been dispatched with ten seconds to spare   
before main thrusters completed their firing and communications aboard   
the ship would work again.   
Abruptly, the pressure of launch and the roar of main engines   
ceased, and Miss Erics sat forward in her seat, triggering   
communications through the automated bridge. They hadn't dared to use a   
human crew to lift this shipment, as they might've discovered what they   
were hauling and let out the secret.   
"MegaTokyo Tower, we have a situation." She said, confident her   
voiceprint was being scrambled before transmission.   
In the background she could practically swear she heard the tower   
complain "Not again!" before a more professional voice broke in. "What   
is your problem, shuttle beta six four?"   
Just then the rising shuttlecraft met a sizable chunk of descending   
navsatt debris that the automated flight system hadn't known to evade.   
The blonde Miss Erics smacked her head hard upon the console at the   
unexpected lurch and lost consciousness.   
Elsewhere in the pilotless shuttle, Jared also felt the lurch. Even   
though he kept his feet through it, he decided that now would be a good   
time to go visit the cockpit and charged up in that direction. 

Lou looked up from where she'd been monitoring communications.   
"Hey, that shuttle Jared is on just radioed for help." She listened   
again for a second. "And now they're not responding to ground control's   
hails."   
"Could be good news." Meg enthused. "He could have taken it."   
"I think that's what we'll assume." Nam agreed. After all, they   
weren't responding to ground control's hails either and were already   
well on their way to reentry, still keeping to the lanes where ground   
was blind. 

Jared rushed into the cockpit prepared for battle. What he was   
not prepared for was the sight of Earth spinning merrily above his   
head indicating that the ship was in a crazy drunkard's fall. The   
flight control software had overloaded and shut down, now gravity was   
doing the rest.   
Smirking, he slid into the pilot's seat. Much to his surprise, but   
not to anyone else, he had proved to have the same concealed interface   
socket in the back of his head as the rest of the sexaroids, and Nam   
had taken opportunity to link him to Anri and shared across all her   
skill programs before they'd started this mission. That included all   
the programs copied from everyone else, and he was now, as they were,   
quite an accomplished space pilot.   
Correcting their spin, he made for a chosen landing point. 

Genom Tower had not yet reached the lofty heights planned for it,   
yet it still sat with oppressive presence, blotting out much of the   
MegaTokyo skyline. Already it was one of the largest structure in the   
world, later it would eclipse its few rivals. But Brian J. Mason was   
thinking not so very far into the future as he was conniving to save   
his present as he entered into the cavernous office of the chairman and   
founder.   
"Sir, I'm afraid the project we were lifting to Genaros 5 has been   
lost. The shuttle it was on has crashed, no survivors. That makes the   
third shuttle to that station to be lost this week, sir."   
"What information from our private source at the spaceport?" Quincy   
growled in that too deep to be real voice of his.   
"I'm sorry, sir." Mason bowed slightly, in harmony with his   
peculiar resemblance to a member of the Addam's Family. "But one of our   
remote listening devices was discovered and removed. I ordered the rest   
to self destruct lest they be traced to us."   
Quincy did not believe in coincidence, only conspiracy, and his   
grasp on the world was not yet firm enough so as to be unshakable.   
"Hmm, someone must have connected enough facts to discover our secret   
involvement in research being conducted there. Begin covering our   
tracks at once. Cut off development and funding to Genaros 5 and   
relocate our laboratories to more secure locations. Destroy all   
evidence of our illegal projects at once on station and restart them   
elsewhere. I warn you, Mason, it would be unfortunate if Genom's name   
were to surface even slightly if there is a scandal."   
His threats were enough to frighten even the ghoulish Mason, who   
bowed. "Yes, sir. I'm aware of that, sir."   
  



	2. Chapter Two

Bubblegum Boy   
Chapter Two 

by Jared Ornstead   
aka Skysaber   


The amazing thing to him was how five ladies with identical   
backgrounds, identical skills, and in identical circumstances could be   
so different!   
Nam had plunged herself into the stolen supplies and now she had a   
collage of favorite hairsprays, scents, bathgells, shampoos and so on   
that he couldn't even begin to keep track of. There was just this army   
of bottles in the bathroom drawn up in ranks like soldiers whose faces   
were the myriad different shapes and colors of bottles only Nam seemed   
to understand. She always smelled nice, though, and Jared shared with   
no one his secret guilt in sniffing her when he thought she wasn't   
looking.   
Meg, if she used scented soap it was always just a simple lilac.   
She far preferred to be nose-deep in technical manuals or sweaty and   
greasy as she crawled through the guts of some machine, learning them   
inside and out. Already she'd rebuilt one of those space labor   
powersuits four times! Not that he complained, he helped her as often   
as he could. It was a fascinating subject to study and she was learning   
all the time, which made her an excellent teacher as well.   
If Meg liked machines, it was Anri who was nuts over their   
computers. It was the sort of thing you'd expect to see in a hacker   
movie, the combination of typing and souping up her chosen machine with   
wires strewn all over the place and cables hanging over the backs of   
chairs like a catch of exhausted octopi. But unlike the typical   
stereotype of rumpled and frumpled, wrinkly and stinky hackers who've   
had fewer nanoseconds of personal care than their CPUs had hours, she   
always looked nice in a casual sort of way and smelled sweetly of   
roses.   
It was Lou and Sylvie that he spent most of his time with because   
their interests were so close together they were able to practice them   
with each other and the more the merrier. Lou's dancing practice   
required exercise, space and stretches, while Sylvie was only concerned   
with getting good workouts. So in that way they kind of teased each   
other to do a little bit extra and Lou lifted weights she didn't need   
to while Sylvie did leg lifts and pirouettes that weren't really her   
idea of nice, clean strength training. She changed her mind swiftly   
enough when it became clear how strong those dance steps got her   
legs, and Lou quickly learned not to complain when she learned how to   
incorporate arm strength into her dance routines.   
Sylvie was also a quiet and demure adrenaline junky, which thing if   
he hadn't seen personally he never could've believed. The girls all had   
a "passionate under a quiet surface" air about their personalities, but   
they all took it different ways. It was kind of like having a herd of   
younger sisters, innocent about bunches of things, eager and energized   
and about to explode off into hundreds of different directions at once   
and trying to herd them so they didn't escape supervision entirely.   
Jared was outnumbered five to one and he'd like to be implementing   
his own plans instead of waiting for the sexaroids to grow up so he   
could stop shotgunning them all against disaster. So whenever he could   
he'd arranged group activities, but what was most wanted was a group   
interest to keep them from blasting off every which way and being   
lost to each other forever. 

After the shuttle thefts it seemed wise to avoid space traffic for   
a time, but he had arranged to steal a shipment of mining machinery on   
its way to Indonesia from Germany. To their delighted surprise, on   
board there was a Brum-Bar specialized tunnel boring machine that   
weighed 300 tons, designed for creating underground paths for things   
like mine shafts and subway tunnels. The thing was nuclear powered and   
almost wholly automated (once Anri had a chance to reprogram the   
computers, that is), so they'd set it up to be boring out an   
underground, underwater base in the closest thing their underwater   
range had to an island - which was a decent sized mount whose top was   
broad and flat instead of pointy, so what could have been a good sized   
surface territory was instead a huge mudflat in low tide and a   
navigation hazard at high tide.   
That kind of sea formation was so far worthless to man. You   
couldn't live on it or farm it and it was dangerous to ships to be   
around. That made it avoided and therefore private and therefore   
perfect! Jared used the Synoptic Teacher to get some building and   
planning courses, shared that with the girls via their programming   
implants so he could get an extra set of opinions from different   
viewpoints and share the workload, and between them they'd adapted some   
already complex plans for base layout he supposedly had because in his   
series he'd had to infiltrate those facilities.   
Well, then he had to admire some of those villains' architects,   
because some of those were sweet designs. They actually adapted two and   
linked them. An ingenious military compound and an industrial site,   
carving them into two different levels of the sea mount and adding some   
features to adapt to the underwater environment, plus they had to add   
bays to hide their stolen shuttles, transfer their cargo, and also   
handle subs in the future because you'd really need to hide your   
transportation if you wanted a base to stay secret. Parking on the lawn   
just gives too much away.   
And speaking of parking on the lawn, it gave them away. 

They were all in the middle of a meal lovingly prepared by Nam,   
just sitting down to talk about the day's issues, when a loud knocking   
came three times upon the hull. It was scary to be interrupted   
unexpectedly like that, and the more so because they were on the run   
from the law and had thought themselves safely hidden away.   
The knock repeated, a very deliberate, very measured, very human   
knocking. Out in the water there was someone trying to get their   
attention.   
"Okay ladies," Jared nodded as the knocking continued, repeating   
the third time. "You report to the weapon lockers and stay out of   
sight. I'll go see who our guest is and what is it they want. I'll call   
you if I need rescue or anything." They began scrambling to get to the   
guns while he took a leisurely look around the breakfast he didn't get   
to eat before sighing and heading to the nearest airlock.   
Their nearest was actually their best, modified by Meg to work   
underwater where most of their airlocks couldn't and didn't, space not   
giving you the same difficulties in pumping something out to get the   
air in. Readying himself for a dive, the redhaired superspy pressed the   
cycle button to go out and see what they wanted, only to be caught by   
surprise by the doors opening to reveal three men in dive suits   
standing there dripping wet. The first took off his helmet, shaking his   
hair out, and revealing a man who'd had a very expensive bio-sculpt,   
plastic surgery that gave his head features of a German Sheppard. He   
started their conversation complaining. "Took you long enough. Now what   
is this emergency you'd been signaling about?"   
Jared's chance for replying was taken away when a shrill voice   
cried out from behind him. "THERE!" He whirled to see a disheveled   
blonde he'd never seen before. She was stalking forward in a fine   
temper, addressing the man who, by his markings, was the head of a   
rescue team. "I want you to arrest this man at once! He's guilty of   
piracy and kidnapping me, and..." she shook with outrage to the   
ceiling. "He's not even noticed me!"   
The rescue team had spearguns pointed at him now. Dog-face   
addressed him. "I think you two had better come with us."   
Jared sighed and nodded patiently, plotting contingencies as best   
he may. 

The dive team took them up, carrying the crying & near hysterical   
woman in their dive-support rescue bag, while Jared (on a hunch) just   
used his own abilities to the surprise of all. Thankfully, the   
demonstration quieted his accuser and won him some respect from the   
divers, who informed him that they were with the CEO of Green Corp on   
her boat touring her company's fish farms in the area when they'd heard   
a weak radio distress call under them and stopped to investigate.   
So zero attention yet, beyond this small group. Jared was wishing   
this event hadn't happened, but was already working out how to get out   
of it with as much secrecy intact as possible. His group had way too   
much equipment now to move it, and it was way too soon to be able to   
hide it. So he was hoping to negotiate some kind of deal with these   
people - a plan which miss damsel in distress was no doubt going to   
complicate. After all, they would have remained a secret even now if   
not for her.   
They should have thought to check more thoroughly the shuttles and   
ship they'd stolen. He thought they'd put everyone off. Obviously,   
they hadn't. And he didn't feel like killing everyone here just to keep   
a secret. It didn't rub him right.   
So, preparing himself for the worst, they came up on the deck of   
the cabin cruiser this lady CEO was on and Jared got up first, looking   
around, only to stop dead cold once he saw who it was. "I know you..."   
he said, confused, in full voice.   
The lady CEO lay still on her beach chair sipping drinks while   
wearing a fetching one piece swimsuit. Around her was a pool and   
various things Jared didn't pay a moment of attention to at first,   
concentrating as he was on her. Shaking himself out of confusion, he   
put on his glasses for the Heads-Up-Display they offered, calling up   
the lady's information at a glance.   
"Yes," he continued. "Caroline Evers, also known as The Ripper,   
competed with a fellow employee for promotion in 2022, lost when he   
graphed her menstrual cycle against her productivity." By now people   
from the divers rising up the ladder behind him to miss CEO herself   
were sitting up to take notice, especially miss distressed blonde, but   
Jared was too wrapped up to pause his narration of facts spreading   
before his eyes.   
"Humiliated, Evers removed all womanly functions, replacing her   
womb and uterus with cybernetic parts. A driven woman, it took her   
three more years to rise to the position of company president. In early   
2027 the man who had beaten her out of that promotion came to her,   
unemployed, begging for a job. Instead, she made him her husband."   
The lady in question had slid off her chair and was rising to her   
feet, staring at the red haired teen in shock. He continued on,   
oblivious. "Tragedy struck when Caroline began to experience phantom   
menstrual pains in her cybernetic parts. Attempting to stop them, she   
had more and more of her body replaced, to the extent of: Major Organ   
Replacement, four Boomerware Cyberlimbs with Realskin and two   
Cyberoptics with nightvision, at minimum. At the same time, she   
discovered that her husband was seeing a prostitute. Confronted, he   
declared Caroline was not a real woman anymore. She murdered him, then   
used corporate resources to cover it up. But she had gone over the   
edge. Caroline began to experience blackouts, seizures, and periods of   
murderous rage - all symptoms of cyber-psychosis. Afterward Caroline   
would come to finding herself holding a bloody knife over the body of a   
murdered prostitute. She tried to get help but the specialists she   
consulted claimed her operation was too extensive to reverse. By that   
time a joint ADP and Normal Police task force had tracked down "The   
Ripper's" trail. Declared a "Boomeroid" under new legislation, Caroline   
Evers was hunted down and destroyed by the ADP, terminated in 2027."   
There passed a long second's worth of silence.   
"But it's only 2026." The woman in question declared in a soft,   
small voice.   
Putting away his glasses, Jared declared with a sly grin. "Then I   
would recommend you make some changes. No?"   
She nodded, now appearing helpless and afraid, but firmed as she   
asked the polite question. "Who are you?"   
His grin blossomed. "I am Skysaber, Interdimensional Superspy   
Adventurer."   
"I thought you were a poser." One of the divers opined, no longer   
sure of himself.   
"He isn't."   
The distressed blonde who'd surprised him by being on board their   
sunken shuttle suddenly firmed, stepping clear of the divers who'd   
rescued her to speak to the shaken CEO. "This man is the real   
Skysaber!" She declared, pointing at Jared, then facing back to   
Caroline Evers. "He first came to this world on a shuttle carrying five   
sexaroids to my boss on Genaros 5, and he freed them and stole the   
shuttle doing it. Then he stole two more shuttles carrying up parts,   
and I happened to be on one of them. He used authentic tools from the   
series, including a Nerd Toy, to cut down sixty-two security boomers   
during launch when no one else could even move around!"   
All eyes went to Jared, who shrugged. "It's a good time. No way   
that one boomer could tell that another was dying. Makes a great series   
of ambushes instead of having to fight all sixty as a coordinated   
group."   
There was another long moment of silence.   
"So what are you doing here?" Another diver asked.   
Again, a nonchalant shrug. "Saving the world from Genom. What   
else would I be doing here?" The superspy stretched during his reply   
in a way similar to Ranma. "But how would you guys know about me   
anyway? What's all this talk of me being 'real' or 'poser'?"   
"Because you're a major, animated series here." Caroline replied,   
stunned he didn't know. "You've been the most popular thing for half a   
century."   
"Not again!" Jared's face dropped into his hands.   
"Again?" The dog-headed diver queried in shock.   
"Yah," the superspy complained, "this isn't the first time when   
I've been assigned to a mission where the target world has been big   
fans of my show. Now I've got to deal with people quoting all my   
dialog, wearing Skysaber T-shirts, and knowing all about my toys. It's   
embarrassing to be a superspy who hasn't got any secrets!!!" He shouted   
toward the sky.   
"It's not just that." Caroline took a bit of recovery out of   
enjoying teasing him with this. "But just like "Dog-faced Doug" next to   
you got a sculpt to match a horrid nickname, you've got fans who wear   
your face and appearance by surgery. You've got entire poser-gangs who   
match characters from your series walking the streets."   
"Ooooh, nooo." The spy moaned, getting paler by the moment.   
"Still think he's a poser." Said one of the divers.   
"I don't!" The damsel they'd rescued insisted.   
Jared shot her a glance out from under a haggard eyebrow. "I   
thought you and I were at odds just a second ago. Why reveal where I'd   
hidden my ships only to change sides now?"   
She had the grace to look sheepish. "I'm sorry. All my life I've   
been a fan, ever since I was a little girl. I even went into security   
so I could like you and maybe have adventures like yours. Then you   
first show up and I thought you were another 42-S sexaroid, only you   
did in the boomer set to guard you. Then you did in all those guard   
boomers for that secret cargo, but you didn't come to rescue ME!!!"   
She shouted with hands at her hips clenched to fists.   
Jared shrank back from her ire, to the laughs of the dive team.   
"I was SOOO mad! So I called for a rescue on a portable radio while   
sneaking around the backs of your friends down there. And THEN!" the   
blonde went on. "You used your aquatic modifications when you didn't   
even have to, and then you KNEW about this woman even though it's   
obvious you never met her before! And you even knew the secrets of her   
future! How could you be anyone else?"   
"I'd like to know how to fake that myself." One of the divers   
opined.   
The damsel pouted. "About all I can be angry on now is that you   
knew her and NOT me!"   
Jared presented a hand to her for a shake. "Hi, my name's Jared   
Saotome, only I go by Skysaber while I'm on duty. Pleased to meet you."   
The lady took the hand, giving it a good couple of shakes. "Hello,   
pleased to meet you. I'm Christina Erics. I hope we can be close   
friends."   
He nodded agreeably. "I'd like that, Miss Erics."   
"Please, Christina's fine, or Tina."   
"Tina, then."   
"Can I call you Jay-chan?" Christina bubbled easily.   
"Uhmm... I'll think about it." The redheaded celebrity edged away   
nervously.   
"Do you have any proof that you're the real deal? Besides her word   
and that bunch of predictions, I mean?" The Green Corp CEO and mistress   
of the boat had crossed her arms beneath her breasts and mustered   
enough courage to ask.   
"Sure." He tossed back. "What form would you like for it to take?"   
The spy gave back cheerily.   
The response cut off Caroline's objections, stilling them before   
they could start. She could ask whatever she wanted, hmm? No way was   
any stage magic going to manage a trick that wasn't prepared for, so   
all she had to ask was something unpredictable.   
"How about doubling my bank account?"   
"Any hacker could do as well." He shot back, not turning from his   
view of the sea as the sun made the waves sparkle. "Are you sure you'd   
take that as proof?"   
"Well, no." She reluctantly had to admit. She wouldn't. But it   
still would've been nice. "How about some technology, then?"   
"In what field?" He returned, still contemplating the ocean.   
"Matter transportation!" The excited corporate president exulted.   
Still standing twenty feet away, the superspy offered her back her   
swimsuit. "Here, I know how much suntanning means to you, but please!   
Some modesty in front of the men, if you don't mind."   
Looking down at herself, Caroline shrieked. A lightning-snatch   
towel-grab and wrap was done at sublight speed. Then, blushing, she   
crossed the deck to reclaim her swimwear from his proffered hand.   
The dive team sniggered under their breath, trying to hide it.   
Caroline turned a frosty gaze upon them. "I think the nets for the   
barracuda farm need checking. If you would be so kind?"   
With a chorus of "Yes ma'am"s they were off back down to their   
submersible launch. When they'd crossed the deck line and could no   
longer see aboard, Caroline stepped back into her suit, pulling it up   
around her legs and arranging herself into it before removing the   
covering towel.   
Jared was hiding a grin. Imagine Happosai's techniques turning out   
useful! Who would have guessed? A panty-snatch maneuver done too fast   
to see and his credibility was assured!   
Tina was scowling at him, and whispered. "You could have done   
something else."   
"Jealous?" He thought to cut her off, diverting to denials.   
"Yes. Steal mine, too." She presented her hips for the taking.   
"Ack!" He shrank back behind upraised arms, planning escape routes.   
Caroline laughed. "Okay, that settles it. You are the real   
Skysaber!" 

It would be months before enough of the tunneling was done on their   
new base for any attempt to move in. The necessary mess of construction   
combined with the need to remove rubble from the fresh tunnels ensured   
they wouldn't be habitable until the diggings were virtually complete,   
by which time they'd have exhausted the fresh air down there. So that   
meant they were leaving until the boomer plus borer combination could   
have things to where the breathing occupants could move in.   
It wasn't going without difficulties, though.   
"I saw Skysaber's goodies!!" Caroline cheered. "I saw them first!"   
"No, you didn't!" Tina objected, tears glistening in her eyes. "I   
saw them first!"   
"I need to start bathing in swim trunks, or something." Jared   
groused, strategically placed washcloth in hand as he reached for the   
towel hanging just outside of reach.   
Other girls crowded into the bathroom, staring at the CEO. "You saw   
Skysaber naked?" "No Way!" "No fair!" "He's mine." "I want to see him,   
too!" "Lemme in." "I wanna see!"   
Sneaking quietly out of the press, Jared made his way out to the   
cruiser's pool. Not the best place to wash the soap off, but better   
than the sea. He was out there swimming (and suited), when the rest of   
the crowd discerned his location and followed in a gorgeous panoply of   
swimwear.   
Jared got a nosebleed himself, just watching them come out. He   
turned and dove to hide the reaction, swimming underwater until their   
feet began to enter, followed by more interesting bits until he began   
to judge that swimming on the surface was safer for the eyes.   
He broke the air/water barrier he rejoined the conversation, which   
had already meandered to other topics. Business topics, actually, and   
Nam and Anri seemed quite interested as Caroline discussed her company.   
Quite innocently, Jared began making suggestions. 

Genom's orbital research facilities aboard the Genaros 5 were to   
have been a thing of wonder. Horror, also, inevitably as anything they   
created to go into use would serve their evil masters directly first   
and foremost. But there are materials that can only be made under   
orbital conditions, crystals that can only form in free-fall, etc. So   
those secret facilities were to have been the very best.   
It was also a project that executive assistant to the chairman   
Brian J. Mason was having trouble calling off, though unfortunately for   
him, he didn't know it. You see, the techs and scientists who were to   
have used that facility were easy to reroute. They knew that to disobey   
was death and that Genom could find them anywhere. But Genom's   
engineers who had installed most of those secret laboratories had left,   
and now many of them were dead. It fell to auxiliary resources to   
remove the equipment, and in this case that meant an episode of space   
boomers going 'rogue', as strangely seemed to happen whenever it would   
serve Genom's interests for them to do so.   
Unfortunately for Mason, three of the space boomers slated for this   
task, all routine security types, had been knocked out by EMP grenades   
earlier that week, and so were cold husks resting on a service shop's   
table waiting for extensive repairs to reactivate them. They naturally   
couldn't go rogue as they were powerless, although another two who had   
also received those special instructions did, as they had not been at   
the scene of the EMP grenades and still functioned.   
Another element of that plan, Doberman boomers breaking lose and   
going on long killing sprees, running amuck, and, incidentally   
destroying all of that secret equipment in those hidden labs, never got   
activated or set loose from their kennels as one of the 'rogue'   
security boomers went nuts in an industrial area and was quickly   
dispatched by a clever man at the controls of a crane, dropping the   
berserk cyberdroid in a vat of acid before it could do any real harm.   
The other was acting alone instead of as a widespread event and was   
easily enough dispatched by lesser police boomers, who lost a mere   
dozen of their number.   
So while the boomer incident got reported, the rampage was actually   
overstated by a station controller who thought this would shake out   
some money from his boss's suddenly tight purse strings.   
As a result Mason, who relied upon that report to confirm what he'd   
already thought had gone on, found the wildly exaggerated tale of   
bloodshed and destruction entirely in line with the situation as   
planned and felt satisfied that the whole cleanup operation had gone   
off without a hitch, taking no further action. He was already well   
underway with plans to duplicate the secret facilities on board Genaros   
3, and was deeply engrossed with plots on how to keep all these new   
arrangements concealed even more deeply than the previous one. As far   
as he was concerned, cleanup was over and his job now focused entirely   
on making the next set of secrets harder to ferret out than the last,   
because the last's only perceived fault was they believed that it had   
been discovered.   
And so, entirely functional secret labs on Genaros 5 fell off   
anyone's scopes, into the depths of obscurity, as Genom proceeded to   
pressure their puppet space corporation to cut off the station's   
funding and shut it down so they could conceal their tracks better. 

Well, there went one conventional idea.   
In the company of Miss Caroline Evers, the group of free sexaroids   
made land at one of the tiny islands in that area that Green Corp   
maintained a local headquarters to monitor and maintain operations in   
that area. Christina Erics made her goodbyes and went on to catch a   
plane to a shuttle to where she could resume her duties on board   
Genaros 5, but she promised to stay in touch. Jared, on the other   
appendage, decided to introduce his girls to a hobby.   
The idea had been to bring the girls in to an empty stage, advance   
to the front rows whereupon the curtains would rise revealing brand new   
band equipment. From there... well, that's as far as it went before   
being derailed. It didn't go any farther into the "you be this, and you   
be this..." because it swiftly became apparent that they each wanted to   
be them all. So that's what they wanted, it's what they got. He set   
down a rule that whichever one wrote the music got to pick their part   
for that piece and that gave him a half dozen eager composers, each   
with a different style and different tools they preferred, but since   
each girl wanted to dance and sing, and play instrumental (often in   
the same piece) he let them so long as they could make it work.   
Which, it did. And it gave them some very highly unconventional   
music that played a bit like a circus as far as juggling who did what   
and at what moment, but it gave them the most original sound of the   
century. Sounded great, too; and as there were so many writers   
competing for which girl did it (and got to pick her roles) it crossed   
a wide spectrum of tastes too. But they quickly learned enough writing   
skill to be very cosmopolitan in their appeal, as otherwise they got   
difficulties getting their friends with different tastes to play. So by   
sheer happenstance they came across how to make a band which had all   
the talents it needed to be the major thing on the music scene for   
decades.   
It was after that happened, of course, that it occurred to Jared   
just how often music groups, even the best ones, broke up, and sent him   
back to the drawing boards searching for a new way to hold the   
interests of the girls together, as he was feeling it would be even   
more tragic now if they all parted their separate ways.   
The name of the band, naturally enough, was The Sexaroids, and   
Jared was startled to find how often he was billed as a lead singer.   
Well, they explained, he was one of their group and always had been and   
there was no way he was getting out of this now! Not if they had   
anything to say about it!   
So he sang. And he played, and he danced, and discovered that he   
quite enjoyed himself doing it. With a name and a tune they began   
cutting chips to amuse themselves and keep the music flowing, correct   
mistakes or just listen to while they played around other ways.   
Then Caroline, who'd become their first and only fan listening to   
their jam sessions, found a pile of performance chips unguarded and got   
an idea. Green Corp bought an old media corporation and a distributor,   
both going out of business because of pressure from Genom, and   
reorganized the companies with a well aimed infusion of Green Corp's   
wealth.   
They released their first screaming hot hit days later.   
The Sexaroids shot to the top of the charts and then nailed   
themselves there as hit after hit began striking the shelves, only to   
be torn off in buying frenzies by an ever growing base of   
all-too-enamored fans. Posters, wall-scrolls, and other merchandise   
followed with a steady flood of music, all reasonably priced and timed   
to never wear out their customers so they would get a long burn instead   
of a brief spark, making their group one on par with Elvis for   
popularity, if not greater.   
All without the band members themselves ever knowing. And, in fact,   
the music was piling up because they were composing and performing it   
faster than the media moguls judged their fans could afford to buy the   
new stuff.   
Caroline convinced the band to add special effects displays to   
their art, with the dancing and the performing, and after a bit of   
juggling Anri began to incorporate the stuff with their themes using a   
specially programmed computer slaved to the score (so they didn't have   
to give up one of their performers to operate it). That failed though,   
as the computer just couldn't keep up.   
So Anri, without consulting the others, dumped the core programming   
of the spare Skysaber sexaroid they still had lying around their first   
stolen shuttle, rebuilt its personality and gave it a duplicate of   
their shared skill programs, named it Poindexter and activated it to be   
their effects tech.   
It wasn't days before Jared's effective twin was joining him in   
duets for the song pieces, but the new Sexaroid was more shy and   
retiring that the original and he made it clear that he preferred to be   
kept backstage as much as possible, so that's where they left him much   
of the time.   
Caroline had stars sparkling in her eyes all this time and yen   
signs floating around her face like bubbles as the group's music chips   
and videos just kept climbing until they alone represented a great big   
chunk of the entertainment business, with offers from every spot on the   
globe competing to be higher on the priority tree for when the group   
began to tour. And that had her biting her lower lip. For the group to   
tour, she'd actually have to tell them they were a sensation, and their   
popularity described in terms that would not offend them as they had   
never, strictly, consented to be popular; and it was something of a   
burden to bear.   
Jared got off easy, as there were so many of him on the street   
anyway, duplicates and posers, that he had anonymity after a fashion.   
What was one more Skysaber among so many? Even if he dressed up in   
costume, well, so did many of his posers. In fact his girls often   
teased about getting him a ring, tattoo, or something distinctive so   
they could actually recognize him without grilling one Skysaber after   
another with personal questions. Of course, if he wore whatever it was   
on stage, the instant that video hit the markets he'd be unrecognizable   
again as poser after poser copied the device and marketing sold them in   
stores.   
If he hadn't led such a unique, standout life up to that point he   
might have feared just becoming reduced to a clone. As it was, for a   
time it was refreshing to blend in again, and he had plenty of alone   
time with the girls as it was to feel unique again in a whole new   
fashion.   
All of which didn't solve Caroline's problem about how to get the   
group on tour; or even tell them they were a group, which was the   
sticky part. She was still pouring over the problem when Jared broke   
the music routine for a time to get all his girls registered in Dive   
School, on the twin theories that A- It would be useful, seeing as how   
their coming secret base was all underwater to begin with, and B- That   
shared skills and past were just the thing that might lead to useful   
bonding experiences between them and thereby avert possible future   
breakup of the group.   
It had nothing to do with how he liked seeing them in swimsuits.   
Really. 

Christina Erics, known to Jared as Tina, arrived back on Genaros 5   
to find a station in disarray. The station's progress toward completion   
was halted first by parts delays caused by shuttle losses. But that   
really wouldn't have put it off schedule too much, just delayed things   
a bit and increased the cost. No, what was the stickler was that the   
word had leaked down that funding was to be cut off completely and now   
"rats leaving a sinking ship" would not be an unfair analogy.   
Genom's best personnel, on board for hundreds of reasons, all   
suddenly up and left overnight on special chartered shuttle flights.   
That alone was enough to desperately scare everyone else into leaving   
by the first available commercial routes.   
Space was not like land, you didn't have the guarantee of food,   
water, even breath. It was a necessity for anyone to survive working   
there that they keep their eyes open. Caution wasn't just for security   
types. A micro-leak could kill the highest chief executive if he wasn't   
careful. Landlubbers could afford to shut their minds to anything too   
unpleasant to acknowledge. Highriders got killed too easily to go   
blundering about heedless of the risks.   
And when the big office room types cut the funding, that mean that   
shuttles stopped and air filters didn't get replacements and water and   
food were no longer shipped, which all put together meant that whatever   
wonder you'd built was just one great big orbital coffin. Anyone left   
inside was dead, so go ahead and arrange the funeral.   
What this meant of course was that the station was doomed and there   
was nothing a security officer could do about it. Quickly evacuating   
her things into the same shuttle to take her up, she proceeded again to   
take it down, this time having to lock herself in the ladies rest room   
and pull her feet up to hide in a stall during departure because all of   
the seats down were sold well in advance of her flying up. Only by   
pulling 'Security Business' was she even able to get her things on   
board, and doing that at a cost of leaving one of Genom's mainframes   
behind.   
Out of a job, without a space station to be security officer for,   
she resolved to go look up Skysaber again and see what he could offer. 

The dive school he'd booked them in hadn't been an ordinary sort.   
Jared's Synoptic Teacher was keyed to his unique mental   
architecture. It couldn't work for anyone else (it was fussy that way);   
as a security feature, it couldn't even be made to try. He'd had   
enemies in his comic books who'd attempted to copy his advantage and so   
cancel it out, either with their own equipment or capturing his.   
None yet had succeeded in an attempt.   
However that wasn't the only method or accelerated learning   
technique available to the superspy. Using their own sexaroid program   
implant/edit function to its best extent, armed with top-of-the-line   
skill software bought on the open market (with some adaptations so   
they'd be personalized according to their unique mental structures for   
maximum benefit) he'd shared some additional programs among the girls.   
Doing so he managed to give them slightly above what was normally   
available via implant education to anyone but him; that skill level   
normally associated with a competent but not especially gifted   
professional.   
This could be built upon, of course, as chip skills couldn't, but   
not by a dive school for beginners or the less serious minded about   
their sport. No, it took something really special. So, upon finding   
that Green Corp maintained partial share in a dive school for the   
corporate special forces equivalent of SEAL teams he'd immediately   
signed them all up.   
Six weeks of grueling work followed, dealing with everything a   
normal diver didn't want to know. They blew up full pressure air tanks   
above and below the water just to get a good idea what they were   
avoiding. They swam long distances, bad conditions, and were in the   
water practically every day. The days they weren't they spent learning   
sub operation and maneuvering everything from fightersubs to old,   
decommissioned ballistic missile subs bought when the US trimmed their   
navy. As if that weren't enough they spent days learning every aspect   
of submersible power armor, old clunky suits that felt like wearing   
small cars but could handle depth pressure almost as well as the   
submersible missile boats.   
Their teachers taught them aquatic flora and fauna they could   
survive on at skin diving depths or gather in the trenches while   
working on a submarine bottomed out for repairs. They also learned   
every aspect of repair that could be crammed into their heads in so   
short a time. When their muscles ached from swimming they went to   
classrooms or shops, hooked up to Scholar VR systems and learned while   
their bodies lay in tanks healing. They learned maintenance, repair,   
and jury rigging of devices they never knew existed until they had to   
fix them. They also got the hands-on expertise of what things did and   
why you wanted them working right, plus a few veterans tips on how to   
tweak them.   
It was probably the hardest thing they'd ever done. It was also a   
blast and they learned so much going through it Sylvie and Nam wanted   
to go again. While they worked to exhaustion, and sometimes beyond, it   
was all fun work they way it was presented and the amount they picked   
up was very gratifying both to them and their instructors.   
It wasn't the military approach, but it would do.   
They left as divers suited to just about any type of underwater   
mission, but neither the best in the world or even close to it, merely   
very solidly qualified. Experience would have to do the rest.   
Tina graduated the same class they did, having arranged every   
locker room 'accident' she could in six weeks of training. Jared was   
beginning to wonder if his blush had become a permanent imprint   
staining his cheeks ever more rosy. 

Caroline was back now at the Japanese mainland, having duties to   
the corporation she was president of. The music business they still   
didn't know they were supplying had run through a shocking amount of   
their material reserve, so when the sexaroids left the dive school it   
was not to go back to the lonely island base they'd started at.   
Caroline had arranged a corp transport to the world headquarters   
building at MegaTokyo, and when they arrived the guy and five girls   
found all their things waiting for them in a residence there.   
Along with a first rate recording studio with Poindexter was   
already there and tweaking. It had been his place in dive school that   
Tina took over, as Poindexter was too sedentary to want to attend and   
had given the opportunity to her.   
Feeling vengeful, after all, all those glimpses of Tina trying to   
seduce him via a living pornography show were because thisguy had   
bowed out, Jared went ahead and signed him up for basic training with   
the Israeli Special Forces.   
Poindexter got him back by doing the same to Jared and the girls.   
The Mossad came and picked them up for their tour of enlistment later   
that same day.   
Thankfully, Caroline was able to secure their release from Israeli   
military service after only two months of active duty. But they now   
could get by passably in Hebrew, as well as having stellar military   
training, with live fire against terrorists and insurgents. Active duty   
in Israel means active duty, and those two months gave the team as   
much or more actual combat than 90% of the military forces in the   
civilized world.   
Oh, and of course Tina had found ways to give Jared peep shows he   
didn't want and embarrassed him terribly. But that was to be expected   
from her by now.   
By the time they got back Caroline was pleading with them to go   
back into music, which they did as they needed the relief, turning out   
more music in a shorter time than they had ever done before, and of   
slightly better quality too. The top-quality gear she'd gotten them had   
something to do with it, but it was more the need for an emotional   
release than anything.   
Their fans were going nuts over the new music, but the performers   
didn't know that.   
After which, Meg played a prank of her own and signed them all up   
for beautician school. And not just any old hairdressing institution   
either, they got to learn massage and all the ordinary skills, plus   
more weird and esoteric stuff. Poindexter feigned death until the   
coroner came to take him away, then he bribed the driver to take him to   
the airport home.   
Once they got a postcard from the escaped convict of beauty school   
Jared tried the same thing but got caught by the newly vigilant girls.   
Which was a pity, because having finished the ordinary segments of   
beauty training they got to be instructed as models, then stage   
actresses and actor, then film (all of which was building on skills   
already programmed into them by sharing Lou's original purpose), then   
of course dance and singing and it was here that the bunch got revealed   
to be that ultimately famous group: The Sexaroids.   
Caroline whisked them out of there three minutes ahead of the film   
and news trucks. They spent three hours trying to lose them in   
MegaTokyo traffic, finally having to go to the airport and pretend to   
take a plane to dodge all of the helicopters and cars that had joined   
in the chase. After that, she made them agree to no more pranks of that   
sort on each other.   
But Jared had made to himself, during this encounter, a very   
interesting observation. There were several times when they could lose   
their pursuers only to regain them again because the reporters knew the   
city better, or chances where they might've lost them if only he and   
his friends had known the local terrain.   
Since this was his life the superspy knew there would be running   
chases in it, so the boy genius resolved to learn the layout of the   
city as best he could to prepare for those oft-foreseen future   
contingencies. For that future need he got the maps and city plans   
arranged in chip form, downloaded them to his brain, then (because it   
was obvious since the quake that things had changed) he went out to   
gain some firsthand knowledge.   
Of course, he hadn't reckoned on MegaTokyo on being quite such a   
rough town. 

When the owner of this club named his bar the Deathdance he didn't   
know how right he would be. It was based in the top of an old,   
pre-quake skyscraper stripped mostly to the frame by the catastrophe.   
Fallen chucks of concrete and glass closed the streets to all sides of   
it and formed a semi-lethal rock garden that customers in the repaired   
penthouse dance hall and bar could look down on, seeing the people   
below like rats in a maze.   
The site was one of the most notorious gang hangouts in Megatokyo,   
and worse, the bar was a well known place to find boostergangs - those   
particular types of hoodlum fraternities whose members used any and   
every means of enhancement they could lay hands on, legal or illegal.   
Cybered and wired, half the boostergangs in the city congregated   
there to boast of their past misdeeds, but they didn't come to dance   
for the pleasure of it. Close to half the official challenge matches in   
the city were fought in and amid the broken stones around the fallen   
building, with the occasional spectator helped off the balcony to fall   
screaming onto the jutting stones below. It was considered a bad night   
when the body count was below twenty.   
Jared's automap listed this as a department store in a prosperous   
business district.   
Naturally getting close dispelled that illusion and he pulled over   
to update the map. Perhaps not the wisest choice. He groaned when   
wind-blown litter by the side of the road concealed glass shards that   
punctured his front tire.   
"Great, now how am I to get out of here?" He groused, looking   
around he could see no immediate signs of help. This wasn't exactly the   
type of place where you could just call up Auto Club.   
"Maybe the American Auto-Duelists Association." The redhaired boy   
thought aloud. Nobody without plenty of arms and armor would venture   
into this neighborhood, which got him to thinking about his own present   
state of attire: riding suit and gloves, almost preppie.   
This was not the sort of place to be on the casual end of almost   
fashionable, not in California beach-dweller mode anyway. He'd need to   
be Goth at least to fit in around here.   
The redhead closed his eyes, silently counting to three. One...   
Two... Three... Okay cue rough punks on a shakedown mission.   
Right on the dot of his prediction a collection of street trash   
separated from the shadows, stalking toward him with wide smiles and   
evidence of weapons, a collection of clubs and chains for the most   
part. "Hey pretty boy," their leader called out. "You got the time?"   
Jared took off his bike helmet, using the opportunity to stylishly   
toss his hair and simultaneously flash them an 'I have no fear' smile.   
"Why, no." He generously disagreed. "What I do have is Mister Tommy   
Gun!"   
His left hand, concealed by the bike, had pulled out a Thompson   
Submachine Gun which he then hosed across the walls and surfaces around   
the gang, who disappeared into the cracks and shadows as fast as they   
could dive.   
The superspy snorted and drove off, holstering his weapon at the   
same time pulling on his helmet as he drove with his knees. Shouts and   
hoots of laughter came from the roof as the dance club spectators   
witnessed the scene.   
I'll drive on rims to get out of here. The superspy told himself,   
accessing his map. Now, let's see. Where's a decent repair place? 

At Raven's Garage his wheel was beyond salvageable. The rubber tire   
had come off about a mile back, nearly causing him to spill, and he was   
worried that any more motion and he'd lose the whole front assembly.   
There wasn't alot of reputable business ventures this deep into   
quake territory. This soon after the catastrophe there wasn't much yet   
in the city, period. The redhead counted himself lucky to find this   
one, and it was with a wry smile that he pulled into the open garage.   
"Hey Doctor!" The superspy called out as he parked and yanked off   
his helmet. "You do bike repairs here?"   
"The depends on the customer." Doctor Raven came out of the back,   
wiping his hands on a cloth. His formerly bored eyes widened as he saw   
the classy getup and sad state of the cycle of his guest. "Oh? What   
happened to you? Your type usually have enough to do up in the   
renovated zones."   
"I got lost." The redhead replied airily, making light of it, eyes   
sparkling as he considered the figure before him.   
The good doctor weighed him, evaluating the man so unafraid despite   
the story his transportation told. "Hmm, maybe you'd like to come   
inside? I can keep you out of sight while I put a new wheel on this.   
Then directions to the safe parts of town."   
"Both would be appreciated." Jared shone as he swung out of the   
saddle. "How is Sylia bearing up, by the way?"   
That earned him a piercing glance.   
Jared lightly ignored the hostility, tugging off his gloves. "You   
were friends with her father, weren't you?" He shrugged. "I'm nobody,   
and I don't know her, but I heard what happened with her father and I   
hate to see good people get down and out over stuff like that. It's bad   
enough that it happens, it doesn't have to destroy those left by   
collateral grief."   
The old man just grunted his reply.   
Jared moved merrily back to the vicinity of the garage's kitchen. 

There were five Genaros stations, numbered for the Lagrange points   
they occupied. The Lagrange points were calculated by a scientist of   
the same name, as places in orbit around the Earth where gravity from   
that planet, the sun and moon all canceled out, making them the most   
stable points in the area. Anything put there tended to stay there,   
which was not the case for most of space.   
The Lagrange points 4 and 5, on either side of the moon, were   
considered the best for material shipment, just because the way the   
math worked fuel costs for moving cargoes to and fro between the Earth   
and Moon used spiral patterns that only really made sense to the   
chrome-domes who'd figured them. But since their math produced costs   
well below all other methods, everybody used their patterns.   
It was the slow-boat way to travel the distance, but it was cheap.   
Point 1 was directly between the Earth and Moon, more towards the   
moon's side of the scale than anything. For laser communication, or   
anything traveling the direct route, this was the most important path   
of all and the Genaros station there appropriately valuable.   
Naturally Genom owned that one.   
They owned 5 and 3 as well, all indirect and deniable. Genaros 5   
because it was on the natural route for return to the Earth using those   
inexpensive spiral routes, and anything that traveled the path could be   
put at risk if the owners and operators of the station felt those   
shipments needed to pay a tax or be subject to the station's guns.   
That hadn't happened yet, but those in the know knew that it was   
only a matter of time. You could ship anything you wanted to the moon,   
but if you wanted to make a profit you had to ship something back, and   
that's where Genaros 5 had fallen in Genom's plans. And with 5 to   
control shipping, Genaros 1 would tax information by controlling most   
of the communications exchange.   
There were dozens of theories competing over how best to manage the   
points and their stations. Transport, communications, infrastructure   
and it all could be handled countless different ways using various   
devices, procedures and technologies, it's just that Genom's own pet   
plans always seemed to succeed, either through political or monetary   
interests, or by the simple expedient of mysterious deaths among their   
competitors.   
Always a company to think ahead, they'd planned to wait til space   
manufacture was commercially viable at last, then step in to make a   
profit off of everyone else involved in it, and by exempting their own   
cargoes, undercut everyone else's prices and so gradually corner the   
whole space market. Genaros 3 only entered that plan because its point,   
on the far side of the Earth from the Moon, made it the ideal deep   
space research station, and one of the plum spots for later expansion   
into the outer solar system.   
Not that Chairman Quincy was particularly interested in space or   
the solar system. But there was money to be made there and money he was   
very interested in. It gave him all his other tools by which he was   
fast becoming the undeclared ruler of the planet. 

"Mason," groaned that almost painfully-base voice from Quincy's   
chair. "What news do you have on the progress of the Utopia project?"   
Mason smiled in that way of his that revealed he should never be   
allowed near small children, and made you hope you never, ever had to   
share the same toilet seat after him, because he'd probably leave   
something sticky and foul on it. "Reconstruction of the facilities on   
Genaros 3 is on schedule, with an additional 30% power available to the   
testing areas over the original labs." What he failed to mention was   
that testing facilities were also 20% smaller, as arranging secret   
facilities aboard space stations was alot harder after major initial   
construction work was completed. They'd had to order their puppet corp   
to remodel half the central section in order to arrange these secret   
labs as big as they did.   
"And the size of the facility?" Quincy almost seemed to growl, but   
he always sounded like that.   
Drat! Mason gritted his teeth. More and more he was learning how to   
conceal secret information on his projects from the chairman, but he   
was not perfect yet. "The same, except the testing spaces, which are   
20% smaller, sir." He didn't dare growl in frustration.   
"That is unacceptable." Quincy scowled at him, steepling his   
fingers. "Those spaces are the most critical part of the design. They   
must be made full size. Arrange for it, Mason. I am depending on you.   
Do not fail me in this. For those research labs to be of full use to me   
they must handle the full range of products. They cannot do that if   
they are unable to handle in house evaluations at an acceptable rate."   
"Yes, sir." Mason growled, just a little bit, but he contained it   
enough to sound okay. "That will be... difficult, sir. Those   
installations track every centimeter. Getting sufficient space is   
complicated."   
"I leave it in your capable hands." The big boss, most powerful man   
on the Earth, gloated in his almost froglike tones. 

Christina Erics was nothing if not adaptable. When the space   
development corp that ran Genaros 5 decided to shut that operation down   
she'd applied to transfer, even though she really planned on seeing   
what Skysaber was up to.   
Dive school had been enlightening. She'd privately admit to herself   
that she'd not been naked so much since birth. Then there came military   
training and then beauty school and she had to admit she'd been   
perfectly shameless.   
All in a good cause, of course. Snaring Jared was an   
interdimensional hobby if one read the comic books right. He'd even   
confessed once, to the Magic Knights of Rayearth, that his self control   
did have limits.   
Christine was just doing what an attractive girl could to crest   
those, of course.   
Still, as attractive a hobby as it was, there were bills to pay. So   
when the transfer came in approved she took the next shuttle up into   
orbit, heading out for her station on the newly renovated Genaros 3,   
whose last security chief had to retire over a scandal brought up when   
he'd demanded too much in bribes to look the other way when Genom   
started in on rebuilding the station the way they liked it.   
An outraged husband vented the bribe-seeker out an airlock a week   
before he was to go Earthside. Police boomers cleared the killer of   
charges on the plea of temporary insanity over his finding the former   
security chief with his wife.   
Christina knew the last chief to be as celibate as a monk. She   
doubted whether he'd slept with his own wife in the last ten years. But   
killing to cover shady business deals was a standard practice in Genom   
and all its subsidiaries. She'd mostly avoided it by pretending to   
airheaded innocence whenever questionable subjects came up, coupled   
with dogged work at maintaining respectable, if uninspired, standards   
on regular issues.   
This combination made her bland enough to be of use to Genom   
without threatening any of their secrets. She suspected she'd only   
risen as high as she had based on the fact that certain parties always   
wanted her 'airheaded blindness' overlooking whatever projects were   
secret this week, while efficiently keeping the regular peons in line.   
As a result, she knew a great deal of what passed for secret in   
Genom dealings, and it was bad enough to begin wondering, when she   
caught their new plans for lab space on the already renovated station,   
if she shouldn't lay plans to fake her own death. Get enough of a   
settlement plus life insurance and adopt herself as an heir and she   
could retire and not wonder any longer when Genom would finally decide   
the airhead image was a fake and she knew too much to live. A change in   
name, fake the age, alter some records and soon her life of intrigue   
could be over.   
Plus, she could be with Jay-chan. 

In most cyberpunk worlds a chip rack is among the most useful bits   
of cyberware a body could have. The ability to acquire competence in   
virtually any field just by slotting a few chips was hard to equal. It   
was superior, of course, to actually have those skills, 'cause then you   
could improve upon them with experience, where chip software is always   
the same.   
Jared had an alternative in his Synoptic Teacher, which all it   
really did was download those same, or very similar skill programs into   
his grey matter instead of stored on opticals, but it also held   
programs superior to most if not virtually all cyberworlds.   
None could match his in versatility.   
While waiting in the back of Raven's Garage he'd implanted the   
appropriate cycle maintenance programs for this technology, and   
immediately upon waking had learned how much more he'd preferred   
hoverbikes. This stuff stank!   
Then Doctor Raven came back, wiping his hands and asking for   
payment on the replaced wheel and tire. Paying up with a tip, Jared   
shrugged and saddling up, he roared off to continue his explorations.   
Actually, after blowing away two more attempted muggings by fellow   
bikers in the next three miles, he decided to call it a day. 

"Sylia, someone on the street is asking about you. I ran into one   
today. He knew I was connected with your father, in spite of all I'd   
done to hide it." Raven's image flickering over the vidphone's screen   
looked concerned.   
Sylia Stingray, one of the most influential and wealthy sixteen   
year olds in the city, if not the country, and certainly one of the   
most intelligent, was wise enough to know a danger sign and heed it. "I   
understand, Doctor. What do you recommend I do about it?"   
"Those plans you've been talking to me about. Now might be the   
right time to put some of them to use."   
"I understand, Doctor. Thank you for the warning. I will begin   
implementing the plans you're referring to at once." 

The real difficulty to mowing down muggers was this was Japan.   
People noticed things like high caliber hand weapons, were afraid, and   
called the cops, Jared reflected as he gunned the throttle on his   
motorbike, vaulting off a slope in the curb to sail across the hood of   
the police car that had veered to a sudden stop in front of him, pulled   
sideways to try and block his path.   
The two police cycles on his taillight followed the maneuver, one   
heavier than he landing on top of the cruiser's hood and leaving tire   
marks as the cop raced off trying to catch their fleeing pursuit   
victim.   
Jared stood in his saddle, one foot hooked under the lip of the   
bike's seat while the other stood on top of its side as he lay the   
racer nearly flat to make a turn, accelerating up the incline of a   
slope, onto a busy freeway, only to slice across four lanes of moving   
traffic weaving in and out between cars passing at nearly right angles   
to him to jump the barrier across and do the same to the four lanes of   
traffic on the other side, speeding down their on ramp.   
That would have lost 'em if not for the news helicopter that had   
picked up following this chase scene and recorded that evasion in   
loving detail. It wasn't often that MegaTokyo had a chase scene so   
vivid they interrupted programming to broadcast it live, but Jared was   
starring in one of them right now.   
He'd lost the original chasers, but two more police bikes and a   
four wheel interceptor arriving as backup to the first chase team   
pulled onto his tail as he was hightailing it down a residential block.   
Instantly the superspy pulled a wheelie into a side alley so narrow he   
had to perform a handstand on his handlebars to avoid grinding off his   
knees on the fences to either side.   
Several expletives were said by cops as he raced down the narrow   
walk threading a needle between low walls, bike still picking up speed   
standing on its back tire and him balanced upside down on the   
handlebars.   
A major network picked up the news copter's feed at that point to   
paint the gripping scene over their all-news channel.   
Swinging out of the narrow alley and back onto his seat and both   
tires, Jared put the bike through a 270-degree spin to change what   
street he'd race up just as the cops angled to catch him at the other   
one. Gunning the throttle once again, he stood the bike on its back   
tire to race up a flight of steps instead of into the intersection   
where two more police cruisers screeched to a blockade stop moments   
later.   
As good as he was, he was using up all his good luck and he knew it   
as he lay the bike nearly flat in a side-stop as he slid under a   
railing bar, into a park, and stood the cycle up without pausing, to   
chase ducks and geese to flapping explosions in the air on either side   
of him in a feathered wake behind him while racing for the other side.   
But cops don't fight fair. One of their dispatch agents following   
the chase had a frame from the newsfeed frozen, isolated an image,   
enhanced it, from that found out the make of his motorbike, and from   
there called the code room.   
The engine of Jared's bike died as one of the chasing cruisers   
broadcast a halt code built into the timing chips by the manufacturer   
at the police's behest.   
George Orwell strikes again. Jared thought bitterly as he saw his   
window of escape close before him. Well, the bike was now so much   
metal, and decelerating at that, so he ditched it, popping the pin off   
a plasma grenade which he dropped in the gas tank as he jumped off the   
traitorous bit of road machinery and into the brush.   
That ought to burn the ID tags off of anything and everything they   
might recover. Was his thought as he made his way in a low, fast stoop   
back to the still disturbed duck pond, sliding in just moments before   
police helicopters bathed the area in the white glare of searchlights.   
The pond water was too muddy to do ought but reflect the light back at   
them as they searched the bushes with lights so bright they made the   
greenery transparent.   
The crashed motorbike chose that moment to explode, fountaining   
bits which would rain down over a wide enough radius to give the police   
forensics labs fits trying to tell bike parts from beer tabs and other   
litter.   
Jared had not been idle all this time, arriving at his chosen   
destination. Not the other side of the pond, those clever police   
inspectors would surely walk the perimeter and find his wet trail and   
resume the chase just concluded. No, he arrived at the pond's drain. It   
was a simple thing. It was a stream fed pond so the exit had to have   
the same capacity to flood as the water entering, controlled by the   
same sort of hydraulic properties that kept a toilet bowl full most of   
the time.   
Cutting his way through the grating bars with his Nerd Toy, Jared   
proceeded to swim downstream and underground to safety, exiting at a   
corporate park's fountain a little over a hundred yards away. 


	3. Chapter Three

Bubblegum Boy   
Chapter Three 

by Jared Ornstead   
aka Skysaber   
  


Cops don't forgive easily.   
Oh, no. In fact, they have whole rooms to store in minute detail   
every fact that can be rendered out of copious searches and lab reports   
on the minutest fragments of wreckage. Oh, for two-bit thieves or   
government sponsored syndicates they can be remarkably blind, but get   
their attention without that protection and they could get pretty   
obsessive about finding you.   
That obsession could take two forms: the department or the   
individual crusade. Now departments typically get so involved only when   
truly motivated, like for example a rash of really offensive crimes or   
pressure from above in uncomfortable quantities. But an individual cop   
usually had a pet peeve or two. Stroke one in just the wrong light and   
you had a bitter enemy.   
And cops do not forgive easily. They consider it an occupational   
hazard.   
Motorcycles crimes in a gang-tough city like MegaTokyo were bound   
to be a rough spot for some officers just out of association with the   
numbers of bikers and their assorted gang raids. But posers were   
another rough spot with some cops. You could get a perp on iron-clad   
evidence except for one thing - half the time some lousy attorney would   
get all the charges dropped and the other half some nitwit jury   
couldn't help but get all confused over how they were supposed to tell   
this Humphrey Bogart from some other Humphrey Bogart who dressed the   
same and spoke with that same outdated accent and lived in much the   
same area.   
Some cops just can't stand to lose.   
So when the case of one 'Midnight Exploder' crossed the desk of one   
harried cop, he knew right from the start what a pill he'd been handed.   
Fortunately, he'd the experience to appreciate that right off the bat.   
Watching the news feeds' recordings of the chase scene did not make it   
any better, and the officers' reports and lab findings confirmed that.   
Not one shred of usable evidence on a high-profile escape from a   
heavy weapons violation. Here was some perp determined that the laws of   
MegaTokyo did not apply to him, and he had to do his getaway over live   
national feed, no less. The press and the boys up in city hall would be   
after this like sharks during a feeding frenzy. An officer unable to   
land results could get cashiered over such a case. About the only   
mitigating factor was this was not his job alone, as a half dozen   
people from various departments were being hauled in to look at this   
from different angles, consulting dealerships where that brand of bike   
was sold, tracing serial numbers (if those could be reconstructed from   
the bits), and so on.   
Grabbing his coat, the police detective went out his door toward   
the chief's office. If he got lucky, this cycle wizard with the   
full-auto pop-gun was a boastful sort and wouldn't be able to restrain   
the urge to claim credit for his deeds among his seedy friends. Or   
maybe this could've been some bizarre initiation ritual gone extreme,   
too. Either way meant sniffing streets and finding out what the local   
underworld knew, and that meant undercover time.   
Lucky they paid hazard pay for that duty, the cop sighed,   
resigned. Ever since the Quake the gangs owned the streets by right of   
conquest. 

"It feels weird to be singing in front of people." Sylvie fought to   
put her costume on the right way up. With these outfits it was   
sometimes hard to tell.   
"You mean, knowing we're to be singing in front of people." Nam   
put in edgewise as she tried to discover which direction the spangles   
went on her own costume.   
"It's not so bad." Lou stepped over and guided them both into the   
rock star outfits she'd designed. "I mean, it's better than the job   
Jay-chan saved us from."   
"True." echoed the word from every corner of the ladies dressing   
room.   
"No," Meg changed the subject, staring at the profusion of tight   
bits she was to slip into, along with the wig. "I am NOT wearing that!"   
"Then I guess you'll be alot more popular with the fans." Anri   
giggled.   
"No, I mean, look at us! We're dressing up as some eighties rocker   
trash! I don't want that. Think! These wigs and tight outfits that   
barely qualify as decent aren't me! They aren't any of us! Our fans   
have seen us up until now as we are, in the ways we wanted to dress.   
Why should we make a big production out of that and change it now?"   
"You didn't appear on a major album cover in your pajamas, which   
was what I'd been wearing when we shot that lead song." Lou's reply was   
terse.   
"Most women don't look so good in their pajamas." Nam teased.   
"Yah, a major clothing retailer came out with street pajamas based   
on that shot. You set a whole new business fashion all by yourself."   
Anri interjected.   
Nam looked over at Meg, took off her own wig and tossed it down on   
the cluttered makeup table. "Okay, if Lou doesn't want the sleepy-sexy   
look then I am definitely not going in for the slutty-sexy look. That's   
just way too close to what Jay-chan saved us from."   
Dressing stopped in the dressing room.   
"Thank God!" Sylvie slipped out of her clingy-tight outfit. Off was   
so much easier than on, which was how it was supposed to look, she   
supposed. "I'm glad somebody has some sense around here."   
"Well, if not these, then what?" Anri questioned her sisters. "We   
go on stage in less than an hour."   
"Yes, but you can't dance in these unless you want your panties   
visible from the moon." Meg outlined her concerns. "And you can't wear   
a bra without the straps hanging out all over, so that means bouncing,   
and that means we just might, conceivably, bounce our way straight out   
of our costumes."   
General reaction to that was quite bad. Even Lou picked up her rock   
star outfit and threw it from her in distaste at that concept.   
"I'm not going back to that job Jay-chan saved us from. Not to   
mention how horrible it was, can you consider the ingratitude? Here,   
he's gone to great personal risk to pull us out of that profession and   
we go waltzing right back in? It ain't gunna happen." Sylvie put her   
foot down.   
Lou signed that she admitted defeat.   
"So what do we wear?" Anri repeated.   
"We'll have to think of a theme." Lou sighed, sitting with her arms   
on her knees. "And I don't know where we're going to get anything   
special on such short notice."   
"Not really." Nam corrected. "Think of the Village People. Each one   
had their own separate costume. We could do that."   
"Or, better yet, think of those dance costumes we were getting   
ready for our play. I could wear those on stage and not feel a bit out   
of place." Sylvie offered. "They're fancy and pretty, yet loose enough   
to move in and preserve modesty. And if nudity is required to be a   
music star then I, for one, am not going to be one!"   
"Agreed," several of the girls chirped in, with Lou hanging back   
only a moment before she contributed her assent as well. She'd just   
been trying to do what she felt the job expected. But on consideration,   
found she agreed with her sisters.   
"So how do we tell Jared about that change?" Nam asked.   
There came a rapping on the door. "Uh, girls? I don't think there's   
any way that I can convince myself to don that costume you set out for   
me. Is it alright if I just throw on the one we had planned for the   
musical play instead?"   
Immediately the five girls burst out into giggles. 

Poindexter wore a bunny suit to the concert. Not the fuzzy one with   
ears, the plastic clothing worn by clean room professionals to avoid   
getting lint or dust from their apparel into sensitive microcircuitry   
or experiments. Apparently, he hadn't liked his rock star outfit   
either.   
Paradoxically, he was an instant hit.   
Caroline had booked a very small appointment for their first public   
appearance. That way they could afford to get used to an audience in   
small stages and not have so great a shock. Plus, there was the very   
small matter that any mistakes could not be so terrible they couldn't   
be ironed out in a more informal arrangement. A mix up in front of a   
Hot Legs sized crowd wasn't nearly as serious an embarrassment as it   
would be in front of fifty thousand screaming fans.   
Interestingly enough, Caroline held a lottery as to who got   
invitations to this little get together, and, just as interestingly,   
some of the scalping that went on got dangerous. But one of the rabid   
fans who'd shelled out a million yen for a scalped ticket came in   
dressed quite fashionably, her wealth and style apparent in every   
graceful gesture, and about the only other thing that stood out about   
her was she was the daughter of a Doctor Katsuhito Stingray and owned a   
very upscale lingerie store.   
But what could she say? She liked their music, and it was important   
to get out once in a while, especially at her age. So Sylia went, only   
slightly regretting that she did not have a date.   
Jared was out wandering the crowds before the act and got the shock   
of his life when he saw the proto-Knight Saber out in the audience.   
Suddenly getting an awful, evil, wicked idea that so often got him into   
trouble in amusing ways, he plastered a wonderfully playful grin upon   
his face and scooted over to the elegant lady's lonely table,   
announcing at the top of his voice. "Sylia Stingray! Congratulations!   
You've won our door prize!" At this point it was generally realized   
that he was THAT Skysaber, and actually a member of the band instead of   
some random poser, of which there were several in attendance. Picking   
the off-balance genius by the hand he directed her to rise. "Come on   
down to the stage. You get to sing with the band!"   
"No, really..." it was amusing what colors she blushed, really. But   
Jared wasn't taking 'No' for an answer, and with the help of rabidly   
enthusiastic (and envious) fans, the mecha and hardsuit genius in   
fashionable and elegant attire was escorted up front to be a part of   
the show.   
Jared was struggling hard not to laugh outside. He was chortling   
fit to break ribs on the inside. Sylia was trying to take it all in   
stride and not doing very well to hide how much she had become   
flustered. "I don't know how to sing!" She whispered to the superspy   
once they twain were on the raised dias that served this private club   
as stage.   
"Didn't think you did." He returned happily, amusement creeping out   
all over his voice.   
"So I just get to embarrass myself?" Was Sylia's answer.   
"No, of course not. You get to learn, and very quickly."   
"And you are going to teach me? This is amusing, but to be of your   
caliber it would take me weeks, if not months or even years to learn.   
Or is there something else planned?" Jared handed her a business card   
out of the Standard Light Urban Survival Pack. She read, "Jared   
Saotome, superspy adventurer - Sixteen year old mecha design and   
hardsuit geniuses taught how to sing."   
Instantly her gaze snapped up to him and she paled visibly.   
The interdimensional adventurer had been playing around with those   
concepts and limitations inherent in the skill programming they'd   
devised for the sexaroids. Bending close to look behind her flustered   
ear he discovered the expected interface socket. This was still the   
twenties, when these things were popular, before the explosion of   
killer programs out on the net caused the practice of interfacing   
directly with one's computer to be abandoned generally. However, for   
the moment, interface plugs were the almost universal mark of the   
techno-conscious. And, being in on all sorts of things, naturally Sylia   
had a socket, and a rack. Good.   
He palmed a chip from his pouch and showed it to her. "I've been   
working on these. It's a Tutorial Chip, basically an instructor in your   
brain. Rather than override your own skills and grant you whatever is   
on the chip, this floats calmly in the background advising you. The   
process does not have the same limitations and whatever skill you get   
out of it becomes your own, over time." He slid it into her chip rack   
and snapped it in place.   
Sylia was quivering with fear, an unaccustomed emotion for her. Had   
she been older and more experienced she probably would have shoved him   
away and stalked off stage before he'd implanted the instruction   
software. But teenagers are more vulnerable to the opinions of others   
than they like to think, and the eyes of nearly a hundred fans held her   
hostage as he inserted the optical chip, then began pulling cables from   
out of his pouch.   
"These," he showed the springy blue high-end interface cables. "Are   
to show you what the chip can't." He slid one end into his own   
interface plug and began sorting out the opposing ends. "Since this   
will be your very first time and we can't have you embarrassing   
yourself, I'll just plug you in and you can ride piggyback on my own   
skills."   
The other end was inserted before the stunned lady could do much to   
reply. He was very good at taking advantage of moments like that.   
Happosai had taught him.   
Suddenly, between the chip and the flow of information from her   
unaccustomed linkage, Miss Stingray realized that she not only knew the   
music, dance steps, and whole production from the point of view of a   
performer, but there was this tiny voice at the back of her head   
whispering how to do each step as she thought about it. How to hold a   
leg or her body, the way to hold her throat, everything.   
It wasn't what it could be with a little conditioning, but she was,   
she realized, actually capable of putting forth a competent attempt at   
this. With Jared, she gave a bow to the audience, and they twain began   
a shot musical number, prelude to the main event.   
That was when Miss Stingray discovered something - However much fun   
it could be to listen to music, and it could be quite enjoyable, it was   
always better to participate. That simple fact astonished her. Yet it   
just got truer and truer as the pair did their warm-up to the main act.   
The Sexaroids followed with a smash performance. 

They celebrated having survived the experience of their first live   
performance (that Caroline had naturally recorded and would soon be   
available for distribution) by going out to an amusement park.   
Since there were none left in Japan (the destruction of the Quake   
having still been so recent) they went overseas to do so. Disneyland   
was just as Jared remembered it (which, seeing as how that was 50   
years ago for this timeline that was pretty sad). But he still got some   
fun out of the others and nostalgia out of that one, while the girls   
enjoyed everything.   
The shocking thing, to him, was memories about old friends not seen   
in, oh, very long indeed, evoked by the power of that old familiar   
site. He'd not thought of some of those people in years, which brought   
him up with a start, as the interdimensional superspy realized that he   
no longer had any idea how old he was. Time travel and dimension hops   
between them had erased any meaningful sense of chronological age, and   
his physical age was whatever the Agency set for each appearance.   
It was both shocking and humbling to realize that one of the   
principle methods for self measuring among humans now no longer seemed   
to apply to him. It was as if he'd lost one of the major underpinnings   
of life in an instant. He didn't know how old he was, and he might   
never learn again - and if he did it might not mean anything.   
Luckily, the girls and the trip both managed to cheer him up almost   
immediately and they had a very good time together, the six of them. 

Caroline was in corporate heaven.   
She had the hottest act on the hemisphere... in the world! And the   
money was pouring in. Green Corp was a food company, but this was   
steadily eclipsing even that tremendous income.   
Hey, the world was a dreary place. Folks didn't need reminding of   
that. Bleak, dark music had been in for decades and gradually displaced   
everything else to the fringes, but now the world was darker than the   
music and people were ready to lighten up. Being on the forefront of   
that gave her group a share of the pie they never could have dreamed of   
as latecomers.   
Also, they were very, very good. 

Sylia was dealing with something fairly foreign to her: fame.   
Sure, she was the daughter of a genius, but that did not, in   
itself, grant glory (only money). Yes, she was beautiful and   
sophisticated, but so were many other women in MegaTokyo. Her   
intelligence she hid deeply, and there were quite a few private store   
owners. No, none of that gave her any attention whatsoever.   
But she had been a star.   
What was better was that she'd lived out every fans' most excellent   
dream. She'd become a performer in her own favorite band. True, it was   
only for a night, and only doing a warmup act at that, but somehow that   
even made it better. That didn't change her forever.   
She was still a fan.   
What this meant to all of the other fans was simply outrageous in   
significance. Posers and groupies worshiped the bands they followed,   
acquiring the attitudes and sometimes faces. Their one true love was   
being their heroes, either by listening to them perform or by surgical   
methods. But all that got pretty hollow compared to being up on stage   
with them, live, during a real performance.   
Sylia found herself enormously popular because she'd done what half   
their fan base now wished they could do. That popularity would fade   
over time as other got that same experience, but for right now she was   
it.   
She found herself sitting in her study contemplating her new-found   
popularity. In her hands she toyed with the optical chip he'd forgotten   
after the dance. 

As much as he loved his girls (and they were all as close as kid   
sisters to him) they had some real differences. Lou was the smartest.   
Meg was the best with tools. Sylvie had the others beat with reflexes   
and combat technique. Nam was the most stable, and Anri fell to second   
place on both brains and technical know-how. Lou and Sylvie tied on who   
could pour on the charm, and could positively melt your socks off when   
they tried (though none of the girls were slackers in that department).   
However, increasingly he discovered there were uniting factors. For   
example, they all liked to shop, and having the income of musical   
sensations they were now able to do that to a downright astonishing   
degree.   
On one of their binges, Jared slipped out to go check on their   
seamount.   
The secret base in the undersea mountaintop was completed as far as   
rough cutting operations soon after the team finished beauty school and   
Jared's hairy ride. They visited with new instructions for the   
autonomous equipment as well as replacement parts for the gear that   
needed it, and moved certain materials inside. The space was shaping up   
nicely, and with the Brum Bar having a nuclear plant, once they no   
longer needed it for rough cutting they were able to park it and hook   
up a nanofactory to that source of power.   
It wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough for full power, but   
linking together the three shuttles' generator capacity (now moved   
indoors to rough-cut hangar bays) and the Brum Bar's plant they were   
able to coax enough energy into the nanofactory's systems to getting it   
running. Slow and at minimal capacity, but running.   
So they immediately set it on fabricating the remaining parts for   
finishing the station-quality fusion reactor. Their underground   
hidey-hole would be dark and dank, without lights or power for most   
systems beyond running base construction (and that only from the fact   
that work would continue off the efforts of largely self-contained   
boomers, recharging off of separate portable generators the team   
brought back with them), but eventually the work would get done and   
they'd have all the electricity they'd need, and to spare.   
Since the power lathes and other tools for fast construction work   
were beyond their present energy capacity, they'd purchased hydraulic   
machinery for smoothing off walls and corridors. It wasn't the most   
important task, but it should be best to have it done before the   
important installation work to follow. Besides, the power rams and   
other equipment needed to haul the other devices safely in by draining   
the shuttle docks required good seals if they were to function   
properly. A proper mounting point for their upcoming fusion plant was   
only slightly more important.   
Besides, they wanted the boomers to keep busy while the nanofactory   
worked. It was a waste of resources otherwise. Their labor to make a   
finished housing for the soon-to-be reactor and enabling docks to seal   
and drain would serve to make the rest of the build process go swiftly   
once they had power. A few minutes with their power tools plugged into   
the Brum Bar's plant after the nanofactory was done fabricating parts   
and they'd have those areas finished to the tightest tolerances,   
avoiding future maintenance problems for equipment they installed   
there.   
So, from rough cutting, they moved on to fine shaping, with a   
fusion plant being built as a background task separate from most of   
their boomer labor force. That was going so slow as to be largely   
ignorable on a daily basis, only needing a few parts moved now and then   
as they were completed, an occasional restock of raw material in the   
nanobath, and a place to stock the finished pieces until they required   
assembly. Still, it could be ages before this makeshift arrangement   
produced a functioning core for a fusion plant so they could run their   
base.   
Putting all that in motion, the sexaroids then returned to find   
Poindexter had been crossing his fingers with that oath not to pull   
enlistment tricks anymore. 

His name was Pavel, and he was an instructor for Soviet Special   
Operations Forces, the Spetsnaz. And Poindexter had somehow diverted   
enough of Green Corp's funds without Caroline being aware of it to   
start his own special forces training base in the Urals, where the   
sexaroids were immediately whisked after debarking the island plane.   
Standing fresh from the South Seas in the freezing Ural mountains,   
they stood in a ragged line before the eighty-some year old instructor   
(who looked closer to forty) while he exclaimed. "I am Pavel. I have   
trained Soviet commandos to DO THE SPLITS IN THREE TO SIX MONTHS -   
whether they liked it, or not."   
Nam's light purple hair had sprayed straight back as the man   
shouted in her face, now it settled, but her equally purple eyes were   
wide.   
Pavel stalked on, smirking as he looked over them. "Soviet Spetsnaz   
were combat ready 24 hours a day and did not have the luxury of a warm   
up and stretch before going into action. I have trained my men to   
DISPLAY MAXIMAL FLEXIBILITY COLD."   
Now it was Sylvie's turn for brown hair to settle while the Russian   
spun on his heel executing a high kick that made the girls wince, then   
held it an impossibly long time before he relaxed, using that to   
punctuate his following statement. "The storm troopers of the Evil   
Empire knew a muscle that can easily relax into an extreme stretch is a   
muscle that can do things: Hit hard and fast, lift heavy, never quit,   
never hurt, blast into action without a warm-up, and recover from it   
overnight. Deprived of food and sleep, exhausted from every exertion   
known to man, bloodied in full contact hand-to-hand combat, we still   
did things like one arm chins and ten foot standing broad jumps all in   
a day's work."   
His grin was nasty. "And you will too."   
Stalking around, he was he only eighty-year old man the girls had   
ever felt frightened of. Jared had experienced Happosai and Cologne, so   
had a more polished perspective of ancient geezers who got more   
dangerous over time.   
Pavel's polished back was to them, but still they had no difficulty   
hearing his strong voice. "The commies were not motivated by vitamin   
sales. They wanted one thing: Athletic supremacy. If a method did not   
work - it was discarded, no matter how attractive it sounded. We will   
be using a straightforward formula for strength that has been distilled   
from the mix of sophisticated research, plain trial and error, and   
unscrupulous espionage. Machine's are the wusses' way out. Modern   
neuroscience offers us a host of very simple techniques that make an   
immediate, positive impact on your strength performance. Today's   
soldier has to carry as much gear as an ancient Roman, or more. How you   
hit in close combat and the gear you carry for ranged is determined by   
strength and technique. Sending you into combat without either   
advantage is worthless."   
The Evil Russian (as he liked to be called) whirled to face them.   
"Don't judge a book by its cover. Don't judge a man's strength by the   
size of his biceps. Things are often not what they appear to be. When   
it is said that a muscle's strength is proportional to its   
cross-section, that statement must be qualified: everything else being   
equal. 'Everything Else' is largely the level of activation of the   
muscles by the nervous system. It is estimated that an average person   
can contract only 20-30% of his muscles when trying his hardest. Your   
muscles are i>already/i> capable of lifting a car. They just do not   
know it yet. Desperate grandmothers wrestling leopards and mothers   
lifting cars to save their progeny have done something to keep the   
natural feedback loop inhibitors from kicking in. Insane people bend   
metal bars in the windows of their cells because their neural circuitry   
is goofed up." Pointing a commanding finger at their noses, the Russian   
smirked. "And those superhuman feats do not injure the ones doing them   
in most cases." He dropped the point and stood up straighter, clicking   
his heels together arrogantly. "So of course the KGB trained fashion   
models to have the power of burly strongmen."   
The man stalked on, suddenly turning to smile at them. "Now that I   
have turned into a capitalist running dog, I will teach you too. You   
will also learn Plyometric Flexibility Training - just the opposite of   
what you do." He poked Jared in the chest. Pavel stalked on, telling   
them what they'd learn and how much it would hurt to learn it,   
finishing with a thin grin and pointing at them. "When I am done with   
you, you'll have the flexibility of a mutant and lift 40 to 50 tons   
every workout. Or else."   
And what was worse, he was right on all counts. 

Caroline was of a mind to shut down that institute the moment she   
got her band back from it, but the Sexaroids insisted that Poindexter,   
who had spent so much time setting this up, ought to enjoy it himself.   
So the prankster was sent off packaged with instructions not to come   
back until he could jump to kick with one leg straight up while   
reaching an arm behind his head over his back to touch the toes of his   
other leg while still midair.   
It was only fair. They all could now.   
Nam especially wanted him to learn how to stand with his knees   
locked and bend forward until his head touched his shins. She'd hated   
learning that one. Sylvie insisted that Poindexter not be allowed to   
breed, but that he also must learn the suspended Chinese splits - her   
own favorite nightmare of a training experience. Anri went purple and   
had fits about never letting him off that mountain until he could lift   
it - she had particularly hated all that strength training, especially   
Pavel's parting shot that first day, "And ladies, strength training   
does not mean having a figure like Charles Atlas. You can pack a lot of   
muscle fibers, dense and strong ones, under those sweet feminine   
curves."   
She despised having her curves mocked. She was fond of them.   
Lou kept her mouth shut. She hadn't exactly enjoyed training, but   
liked being able to do all of those stunts.   
After they'd sent the prankster off to become a flexibility mutant,   
Jared had a look at the books and told Caroline the bad news.   
Poindexter had, in ignorance or deliberately, set up the training camp   
as a more or less permanent operation. It would actually be cheaper to   
operate the camp than to shut it down.   
After some wrangling over possibilities, Anri arranged to implement   
the consensus opinion, which was that Green Corp should switch from   
contracting out its private security to training and operating its own   
security force. Which, after discounting all that Poindexter had   
embezzled for his prank and already lost, was actually the cheaper   
option, especially in the long run.   
It was Jared who came up with the bright idea to extend this   
security training as a corporate option to their blue collar workers   
and mid level management; partly as a perk, some part of that to make   
use of their now extensive training holdings, but also offering a   
slight pay raise to any employee to take that course. Duties of   
security types are by and large very boring until some emergency should   
arise, then they are frantic and nerves dulled by boredom don't often   
deal so well with them.   
This option actually came in very handy. The regular work force, or   
some portion of it, was armed at their desks. Should some emergency   
arise there was a small army on hand to deal with it. A couple at each   
site rotating out as guards (something that both gave them a break from   
regular routines, a chance to relax, but also stay far more alert than   
regular guards as this was an occasional thing rather than an   
interminable duty) to stay on watch and warn the rest if there   
developed any trouble, and somehow things just worked much better.   
Guard duty soon came to be viewed as an in-office vacation.   
That meant that the optional training became very popular, even   
more than the pay raise could alone warrant. Very quickly they had   
offices where even upper management was seeking this training and guard   
duty was treated almost as a perk.   
It was also rediscovered something known in the American Old West   
but forgotten by most movies - an armed society is a polite society.   
One guy with a gun was a bully. All of them having guns were very   
careful and courteous. It was too dangerous not to be, and flaring   
tempers were dreaded by all. So casual insults and slights almost   
disappeared overnight, making everybody happier.   
Even other corporate representatives treaded softly in   
negotiations. And as their rep for security grew, gangs learned to   
trouble other targets when they wanted a shake down or squeeze. After   
very few years, Green Corp's entire employee base had been through this   
training and had the licenses and permits to carry arms wherever they   
went. Then, after being picked on in ones or twos by gangs after their   
guns, the employees went in groups practically everywhere, lived in   
close proximity, and commuted together.   
Employee morale had never been so high, nor retention so easy. Site   
insurance costs also plummeted. But Caroline didn't want a rep as a   
'Muscle Corp' so she tried to sell the training bases, but of course   
Jared stopped her. A good thing, as her own corp almost rebelled over   
the concept of losing their special trait and uniqueness. 

-------- 

The boomer rampage on board Genaros 3 did horrific things, enough   
to make the papers planetside, which brought up the now weeks old story   
told by a station controller's report of a similar rampage on Genaros   
5. Between the pair of them, the costs of damages and the loss of   
Genaros 5 as a useful commercial and industrial entity (which was   
blamed largely on that rampage) and some shuttle losses (which had   
drawn considerable attention on their own) investors of all sorts were   
beginning to think of space as far more high a risk than advertised.   
Consequently, they began pulling their money out to put in safer   
ventures and the space race began to peter out for lack of funds to   
fuel it.   
So for that part, Mason's idea to use another boomer rampage to   
clear enough construction space for labs on Genaros 3 was poorly chosen   
indeed. Quincy wasn't the only stockholder in Genom, and when the   
shareholders began to insist he take action to reduce their risky space   
ventures he had to at least pretend to go along.   
And it was costly. Each of the five Genaros stations cost as much   
to build, and more to maintain, than the great Genom tower itself   
(still in the earliest phases of construction this close to the Quake   
that made it's foundation possible), and they were similar in size.   
As always, Quincy plotted to use this apparent downturn to his own   
benefit. With proper planning he could get other competitors to reduce   
their space holdings and sell their assets there, buying them all up   
himself once their price had dropped sufficiently low. That would give   
Genom a virtual monopoly in lunar orbit, much as they had with boomers.   
Except for one thing. 

"Where are you going?" Caroline came up, looking urgent.   
"Out to scout the streets." Jared replied, pausing in the act of   
putting on his cycle helmet in the corporate lobby on his way out. He   
still had to complete the upgrade of those maps to current before he   
could progress on another project - assuming Poindexter didn't ship   
them all off to Africa or something before then.   
"Oh, no you're not!" Caroline replied, taking his hand and leading   
him back into the Green Corp Headquarters building. "Tina has just   
returned from orbit with some interesting news, which you are going to   
hear, and then we have some planning to do!"   
"Like what?"   
She'd only just broken the news they were a recording hit   
sensation, and it seemed a bit early to spring any new surprises. Were   
they models as well? What? For all he knew they were a political party   
partway through a campaign. That she grabbed the sexaroids from a   
waiting room, where they'd been waiting for him, only heightened the   
anxiety.   
But then they learned how and why Caroline became so anxious. Tina   
was waiting for them in a briefing room, one without windows, which   
meant it was secure, soundproofed, and probably swept for bugs weekly.   
Tina was sitting there in a style of dress that made her look like   
a teenager. Her usual style before (when she'd been wearing ANYTHING!   
Brrr!) was a corporate cut that made her look mid-thirties at least,   
with a severe hairstyle that guaranteed no one would ever date her.   
Non-prescription eyeglasses had once completed the librarian look, but   
no more.   
Instead, the lady appeared for all the world like a teen. Her hair   
bounced in a fluffy style filled with ringlets, make up had appeared,   
and the whole corporate image washed away in a flood of renewed vigor.   
"Kate's been trying to get her to change her look for years."   
Caroline explained before she could be flooded under by questions,   
walking behind the woman to put her hands on the back of Tina's chair.   
"I only just now learned they'd been friends."   
She shrugged.   
Tina herself was acting apologetic. "I'm on the run from Genom. I   
faked my death and adopted this disguise. Now I'm wondering what to do   
with myself. You got any ideas?" The way she asked it was a request   
brimming with hope.   
Whatever request for further info was partway out of Jared's mouth   
stilled when Caroline's executive assistant opened the door and leaned   
in. "Caroline, Amarok is on the line about an acquisition deal. They   
want 30% of our stock and in exchange they're offering..." she noticed   
how Jared was looking at her and trailed off.   
The redhaired superspy had risen from his seat, staring at the   
purple haired woman leaning in the door. Softly, he asked. "Caroline,   
what is this woman doing in this company?"   
Caroline looked back and forth between the interdimensional agent   
and her best friend. "Kate's been with me forever, Jared. Why?"   
"Kate Madigan," he recited, woodenly. "As of mid-2033 was Genom's   
executive officer in charge of information and security. After the   
death of Brian J. Mason became the Chairman's right hand. A powerful,   
intelligent but short lived villain."   
Kate quirked her lips. "Okaaaay, I'll admit I'd had the offer to   
join their internal security department. But I won't take it.   
Caroline's my best friend, I'd never leave her."   
Green Corp's CEO fell into her chair like a marionette with the   
strings cut, looking strangely between her best friend and Jared. "But   
if I were to die like he said next year..."   
Nam's eyes locked with those of the other purple haired lady in the   
room. "Then she could accept and have six years to climb Genom's   
corporate ladder. She's very talented, it would work. The death of her   
best friend could certainly embitter her."   
"I'm never getting cyberware again." Caroline declared firmly. "And   
if that man who got promoted over me comes back or proposes, I'll sic   
security on him!"   
Lou got a smug smirk. "You know, we're got three women in this room   
able to be chief executives of powerful corporations. It's a pity we've   
only got one slot for them." She smiled at her budding friend Caroline.   
Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.   
"Actually," broke in Tina. "That's part of what I wanted to   
discuss." She leaned across the table, welcoming the fact that Madigan   
stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. "The space   
development corp is losing funding fast. After closing station 5 and   
now the problems on 3 and the shuttle 'crashes', public confidence is   
gone. They may even begin offering Genaros 5 or 3 or both for sale on   
the public market."   
"Why should we care?" Anri quipped. "I don't ever want to go back   
there."   
"Not even to get a functioning fusion plant?" Sylvie grinned as she   
saw where this was going.   
"Right." Tina nodded eagerly. "As their most recent security chief   
I have maps and all their security information the director is cleared   
for."   
"So that's all of it, right?" Meg chirped smugly.   
"No, there's data not even the station director is cleared for."   
Tina corrected. "Most of that is self-destruct codes, special secrets   
all companies try with their facilities, and of course major stuff like   
Genom's top-of-the-line secret production labs."   
"What was that my ears did hear?" Jared asked sweetly.   
Tina smiled triumphantly. "Oh, well, nothing special, just that   
Genom was moving most of their prototyping off planet into space,   
building super-secret labs on Genaros 5 and now duplicating those labs   
on Genaros 3. You ought to know, you stole the primary data modules and   
all of the computer gear that was going to be the heart of the Genaros   
5 labs."   
"We haven't unpacked those shuttles yet," he reminded, with a   
predatory grin. "All a concern over where to unpack them without   
destroying their contents or blowing secrets, you see. We're only about   
two months away from having a suitable place."   
"I know," she sang sweetly.   
"You mean we could raid one of those stations and get the medical   
facilities we've been needing?" Nam pressed forward interestedly,   
leaning over the table.   
"More than that," Meg speculated, leaning back in her chair and   
crossing her arms under both breasts. "I think she's saying that if we   
conduct more operations against Genaros 3 then spacecorp could lose   
more investors and begin selling off those stations. Maybe we could   
even acquire one and make use of those secret labs ourselves."   
"That's what I'm saying," Tina confirmed with a predatory grin.   
"I think we have an operation to plan," Sylvie bubbled happily.   
"Green Corp doesn't have the funds." Caroline sorrowed, shaking her   
head. "Even if they offered those stations at cost or somewhat below,   
we'd have to sell assets on the ground that we couldn't afford to   
lose."   
Kate nodded. "Yes, we've got stockbrokers yapping at our heels   
right now after all the funds we've sunk into expanding our South Seas   
fish farms. If the market for seafood holds steady we can rake in a   
profit in four years, but..."   
"Genom's been trying to drive the prices down so they can drive us   
out of a great big chunk of the market with their processed algae   
products." The CEO shrugged. Such was the state of the world.   
"Kibble, named both for its taste and its resemblance to the pet   
food of the same name." Nam made a face.   
"Even if we can't buy the stations, we could make great use of some   
equipment stored there." Jared reminded. "All we have to do is steal   
it. And if space shuts down some operations, that's less profit flowing   
into Genom's coffers. That weakens them a bit, and every little bit   
helps."   
"Genom doesn't own everything in space. More like 60%." Caroline   
informed him. "Gulf and Bradley owns Genaros 4 and do most of their   
medical and biotechnological experiments there, as well as regulating   
some traffic to the moon. Which means, as the regulators, they can   
squeeze out all competition for the drug markets among the workers   
moving in there. There's also talk of the energy transmission   
possibilities, but for right now they don't want to infringe on their   
own petrochem market."   
"So that's 3, 4 and 5," Anri observed, sitting pertly. "Who owns 1   
and 2?"   
"Genom owns 1," Kate offered. "Though they disguise their trail   
through puppet companies. 2 is the only one without direct line of   
sight to Earth, it's on the dark side of the moon. That reduces its   
value considerably, as you have to pay to relay communications and   
shipping there takes longer and is more expensive. Genom wouldn't touch   
it, which left it to some private consortium." She looked to Caroline   
for confirmation. "I don't think it has one owner, just lots of little   
ones contributing."   
Caroline nodded. "That's true, only I think the Russians are now   
major shareholders."   
Jared was tapping his fingertips together concentration. "So Genom   
owns the odd numbers of the five, but two of those are in dire   
straights right now. I think this screams of opportunity, don't you?"   
He was met with startled stares.   
The boy explained. "We strike now when investors are already shaky   
and we can undermine their confidence in the remaining ventures. We   
might even go so far as to cause Genom to close Genaros 3 as they did   
5, leaving them with a grand total of one station operational and   
reducing their functional space holdings to one-third."   
"You don't like them much, do you?" Caroline asked, wonderingly.   
"Left undisturbed they lead to the end of all human life in this   
timeline. What do you think I should be doing?" The redhaired spy asked   
in return. "My mission, or partying?"   
"Partying," Lou answered quickly, tossing a glance to the   
executive. "After all, it makes her money."   
Caroline winced. "Will you ever forgive me for popularizing your   
band?"   
"Sure," Sylvie quipped, doing her nails. "But it's a lot tougher   
forgiving you for not telling us about it until the news crews were   
descending upon us."   
"Point," Tina agreed for their behalf. "But think on this: If you   
continue on in the music business you might be able to buy a space   
station."   
"Not until we're old and dreary," Sylvie complained. "Even as big   
as we are, those stations are huge. The whole entertainment industry   
hardly compares."   
She got some nods.   
"So what do we do?" Nam asked.   
"Could our profits and Green Corp combined..?" Meg ventured.   
"No." Kate corrected herself, "well, it would take five years."   
"So we've got to either reduce their cost, increase our funds, both   
by a vast amount, or find some way to do this that doesn't involve   
money." Jared pondered. "All three can be done. What troubles me is how   
much competition we're going to face in the acquisition. I'd like to   
have those stations. There's stuff I can do with them that could help   
us greatly. But I don't see us in a bidding war with the entire planet.   
It can't be won."   
Genom was the only outfit big enough to measure their profits   
meaningfully in terms of percentage of the Gross Planetary Product,   
even at this early stage. They'd be bigger, tougher and meaner in each   
passing year. Their present so soon after the quake that made them   
virtually own Japan was just a tiny, but very ugly, baby compared the   
conglomerate's far more gigantic (and ugly) future.   
Jared sat up taller in his seat. "How big is spacecorp?"   
"Big," Anri answered.   
"Hard to say how big they will become, the present crisis drains   
them badly." Tina was speculative. "They're vulnerable, if that's what   
you're asking."   
Jared's smirk had turned confident and wry. "So this is what you do   
if you're a superspy. You take a look at what owns your target, if it's   
too difficult to hit directly, and see if there are any weaknesses   
there. How much spacecorp stock is on the market?"   
"For sale right now? Roughly thirty percent. Like I said, investor   
confidence is badly shaken." Madigan was back in her element with   
figures.   
"Then, say, if they were hit another couple of times?" He asked   
with a growing smile.   
"It would be worse," Caroline offered.   
"The more sellers, the lower their stock price. It's a good   
direction, but incomplete." He thought aloud. "What we need is a great   
big load of cash. Then we can offer to shore up their stock value by   
buying a great chunk of it, in return taking control of non-paying   
assets, like, for example, Genaros 5."   
"That's a load of dough." Lou whistled along with her friends, the   
other sexaroids.   
"Stock trades wouldn't cut it. Green Corp is not big enough,"   
Caroline cautioned.   
"No, better if we can keep Green Corp out of it entirely," Jared   
mused. Rising, he snatched up his helmet and began to head for the   
door. "Hang on, I've got to think. There's tons of places to get the   
money, but they're all difficult targets. I need to ruminate for a   
while on this one."   
"Don't forget development." Kate Madigan warned him. "Acquisition   
isn't enough, you've got to make it profitable, and that means money   
after control is acquired. Spacecorp already owns them and is   
struggling to keep their doors open."   
"Agreed. I'm going to drive around while I think about it." Jared   
pulled on his helmet, intending to head out for his new bike, one with   
a custom-built engine to it.   
"Jared," Caroline whispered. "We may not be able to buy either   
space station right now, but we still gain if we can force Genom to   
close them."   
"Again, agreed. The way I think we're going is in Smoky and the   
Bandit style. One obvious mission as our smoke to draw pursuit and   
attention to itself, while our bandit side goes off to perform a quick   
snatch and grab under cover of the confusion. Because, even if we could   
pull the whole thing off sneakily we wouldn't want to. Maximum   
disruption is part of why we are doing this. We want that stock   
devalued, and Genom out of space as much as possible."   
He went roaring out of the Green Corp garage moments later. 

-------- 

Detective Mark Petrovich was a weary Russian, but deceit was in his   
blood. He had no accent, no identifying features, being average height,   
average weight, and unremarkable in practically every aspect. When he   
put on Goth attire, you believed he was a Goth. If it was a leather   
clad biker a job required he could be that too.   
Practically anything he wanted to be, he was. And he maintained   
several street IDs for nosing around in. He wasn't exactly easy to find   
as any of them, but he cropped up from time to time, as did many   
people.   
For ferreting out information on the street the MegaTokyo police   
had few better, and most of them were street creatures in actual fact.   
So when he turned up nothing, that was because there was nothing to   
find, or at least those who knew weren't talking.   
Submitting his report, the detective had the misfortune to be   
turning in his total lack of findings just as the news copters got to   
their man first. 

-------- 

Lights flashed along the roadway, streetlights racing by and   
houselights flicking. It had been close to four hours he'd been riding,   
chewing on this issue. The closer he looked at it, the more complicated   
that made it. Spacecorp was not going to be an easy pushover. Still,   
every problem that came up he had developed answers for.   
Mostly.   
Jared had checked and apparently his mission advantage in this   
universe was genius, the sheer, unstoppable, future-changing kind as   
attributed to Katsuhito Stingray, Sylia's father. Thoughts came easier   
and concepts form more completely, though science was the obvious core   
of this new ability.   
They had a good plan. Trouble was, disruption meant opposition.   
Sigh. Time to build the hardsuits.   
Okay, this was a Bubblegum Crisis universe. It should have been   
obvious before this that some hardsuits could be a very good idea. It's   
just he'd resisted implementing the idea without access to Sylia's   
database inherited from her father. Hers were the best, and he'd wanted   
that for his team. There were a number of ways he could pursue to get   
it from her, but some innate sense warned him off. He didn't know why,   
but he trusted it.   
So that meant non-Stingray hardsuit designs.   
Suddenly realizing he felt weak, and recalling that he hadn't eaten   
anything in three days, the superspy nudged his vehicle toward a nearby   
diner where he could hopefully find something bland and preferably   
satisfying.   
Unfortunately, he happened to be wearing the same driving suit and   
helmet as he had the other day when he'd been blowing apart goons who'd   
tried to mug him. That suit was distinctive in a town as grungy as   
MegaTokyo, bright colors standing out so it was a wonder that he wasn't   
accosted before now.   
Now would suffice.   
The superspy had gotten his bag full of burgers (five, for those   
who were interested he did eat them cold and having them around made   
him that much less likely to forget to eat next time) when he noticed a   
number of toughs had circled in around his motorcycle.   
"Ya got yerself some fancy new wheels, don'cha maggot?"   
Hmm, he sighed, shifting his burgers to be out of the way of this   
fight. This is bound to get interesting. 

Some people are just out for blood.   
Vaulting off the top of a parking structure into the glass side of   
an office building and racing down the halls of a cube farm amidst a   
sea of raining glass, Jared reflected that your average thug wasn't   
this persistent.   
Maybe it was something he'd said?   
Thirty or so thugs on bikes took the same jump from the parking   
garage in through the now busted winder, scattering papers and officer   
ladies as they made their landings in the corporate office.   
Jared slewed his bike to a stop in the open elevator and hit the   
down key, smiling saucily at the lead biker's outraged face as the   
doors closed, cutting them off from view.   
Considering that the lobby was guaranteed to be full of security   
guards, the boy adventurer got off on the second floor above ground and   
raced out a plate glass window, scattering shards of falling,   
glittering substance over the police cars that had pulled up outside.   
His bike landed roughly on the roof of a semi and it was all he   
could do to adjust the vectors to account for both moving vehicles so   
he didn't spin off from the side in a crash that could only end if he   
woke up in a prison ward on an IV tube, already having been sentenced   
in a coma.   
More rough gangers with rage in their eyes burst out of the third   
story windows and began raging down the sides of a sloped hill toward   
him, the landscaping having afforded them a short fall.   
Swallowing his chagrin, the redhead gunned his engine and jumped   
off the roof of his semi to the top of a nearby ten-wheeler. From there   
he rode onto the landing of a second floor restaurant, down the steps,   
through a floor show, and out of the front door, replacing the glass of   
water he'd snatched and guzzled onto the tray of a waiter on the way   
out, along with a generous tip.   
He was barely out of the door when he was surrounding by speeding   
forms of hostile bikers in leather and chains, intermixed with police   
cars pulling up to respond to the alert at the corp building just   
vacated.   
Didn't we just leave this party?   
Vaulting off the sloped front of a police interceptor, using it as   
a ramp, he flew over the worst of the barricade and poured on the   
speed, trying for distance to evade his pursuit. Howling, the angry   
bikers roared after him, the police only moments behind.   
The news chopper pulling overhead made this scene awfully familiar.   
Fewer cops, more bad guys. Spying an open storm drain the superspy   
headed toward it, toggling off his lights and going over to sight   
enhancements, bringing up his official maps of the sewers and   
undergrounds.   
He didn't slow down. They did. He lost 'em.   
The superspy's thoughts followed him back into the private vehicle   
bay of Green Corp HQ, where he turned off the engine and left the bike,   
pulling off his helmet to walk in for a midnight bath - about the only   
time he could trust to be alone in the tub was when the girls were all   
asleep. Cute, but persistent, and he didn't find the 'walking in' joke   
as funny as he did back when he was watching Ranma 1/2 from the outside   
of the TV screen. 

--------- 

The door to Jared's room in the Green Corp arcology slid open   
noiselessly in the dead of night while the superspy lay sleeping.   
Silhouetted in the hall lights was Caroline Evers, Green Corp's   
president. She stepped inside and the door shut behind her, leaving her   
in darkness. Only ready lights from a half dozen appliances provided   
any illumination.   
In darkness and silence, the corporate officer stepped carefully   
down the rooms until she came to the superspy's bedchamber, where the   
door opened once again to her silent override. She stepped in once   
again, this time leaving the door open behind her for a quick escape.   
At this point she could hardly claim to have gotten up for a glass of   
water and gotten lost.   
Actually, this had been Christina's idea. But both were agreed   
Caroline was the better choice to do it. Standing just inside of the   
door, the woman whispered. "Registered Ally, Caroline Evers, requesting   
access to training modules for superspy Jared Saotome."   
On the table he used as a nightstand, the face of Jared's One True   
Watch blinked once in acknowledgement. Caroline crossed over to it and   
began typing on the small key panel. Jared stirred once, cuddling more   
deeply into his mound of pillows, and she flinched. But the redhead   
soon quieted and the corporate president resumed entering her request   
into the catalog. Soon the appropriate option came up, dredged from   
deepest archives.   
Tongue slipping out between tight lips in her uneasy nervousness,   
Caroline queued the program and slipped a finely formed hand into the   
open Standard Light Urban Survival Pack also on the same side table,   
her slender fingers coming out of the zippered pouch with a jeweled   
headband that was familiar to any fan of his series.   
A deep breath to steady herself, and Caroline fitted the headband   
of the Synoptic Teacher over the recumbent Saotome's head, and with   
reactions true to his brother Ranma, the superspy just went on   
sleeping.   
Practically dying with relief and anticipation both mingled up   
together as one, the lady touched the face of the watch, triggering the   
program to begin. Then she quickly queued up another program to follow,   
she didn't care which one, so long as the skill now being taught to the   
sleeping agent wasn't the last one on the list once he woke up. That   
did nothing to erase the record of this training from the catalog, but   
it was both Caroline and Tina's hopes that he wouldn't think to look.   
Caroline settled herself into a soft, thick, plush chair in the   
darkness to wait. Two hours for them to finish, then she'd remove the   
headband and replace it in the pouch before she left again the way she   
came. 

------------------------ 

Pavel Tsatsouline is a real person, former spetsnaz, and most of   
his dialog was taken as quotes directly from his exercise books. 


End file.
